Category Archives: current events

Broken Record, Hitler’s Birthday edition

I’m aware that all I can seem to do is viciously criticize Nazi-admirers, instead of sometimes acknowledging any of the great things they also do.   I’m a broken record with a suspiciously Yiddish accent, what can I say?   This today:

In environmental news, the Trump administration has rolled back regulations on emissions of toxic mercury and other pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. The new rule changes how the Environmental Protection Agency will run cost-benefit analyses for power plants: The perceived health benefits of cutting pollution will be reduced, while the economic costs of curbing pollution will be increased. Mercury is a highly toxic metal that causes brain damage and birth defects.

source

I know, I know.  There’s nothing any of us can do about it, mercury has probably not damaged any of our brains, why can’t I just shut the fuck up and take my increased air-borne mercury like a man?   The $64,000,000,000 question, I suppose.

This Plague Too Shall Pass

In the end, at the end of our widespread terror and disorientation, the vast majority of us —  at least if we are not homeless, destitute, imprisoned, illegally detained, already ill with something else, housed in nursing homes, forced to work without personal protective equipment, or foolishly expose ourselves to known risk —  will survive this deadly pandemic.  It is terrifying, it is hard to adjust to living in a plague.  Some days will be better, some days will be worse.  

It is good to remember this:  in the end, this too shall pass, as all things, and even all of us, inevitably do.

When the deadly threat has passed we may find ourselves living in a society that has made significant institutional changes for the better.  Perhaps this horror will cause Americans to finally force lawmakers to recognize everyone’s human right to have health care in this country, and an affordable home, and access to a good, healthy diet.  

Chances are equally good, of course, given the energetic organizing on, and far above, the ground to keep things as they are, we could find ourselves in the Fourth Reich, since Nazi-types are much better at mobilizing their true-believers who know exactly who they hate and blame, than are ordinary people just trying to live decent lives.   We need to stay vigilant, and organize to fight for what we must — for example, the right not to live in a failed state ruled by remorseless kleptocrats where millions starve and tens of thousands die in the name of maintaining a brutally unjust “status quo”.

When you take stock of the major stresses that we are actually up against at the moment, this may be the most stressful non-holocaust moment in recorded human history, for the most people, all at the same time.   I took a few of the top reasons for our reasonable terror and despair and put them in a paragraph.   It might help you keep some perspective — or it might just add to your nightmares.   I hope it helps you feel better, to see how much we are up against right now and how gigantic your right to feel upset really is.

Random footnote from a deleted email response whining about something or other [1].

[1] short evocation of selected horrors from previous, rejected draft:
 
We’re living in an extraordinarily fucked up moment in human history: foreseeable end of the habitable planet, fascist-type strongmen in charge of most countries, totalitarian types who rule by dividing populations along ethnic and racial fault lines, a ruthless and unrestrained global economy now in free-fall, doomsday clock set to mere seconds to midnight due to unprecedented nuclear threat, this wicked plague where asymptomatic people are infectious and immunity may or may not occur after recovery from the disease, instant mass unemployment, the potential for sudden mass starvation (even for average Americans in a nation that produces vast amounts of often uneaten food) — the weird, sudden attenuation of all social ties, nobody making eye contact in the public space, even from 20 feet, the world’s most powerful maniac lying openly and dementedly on State TV every evening to keep his zombie base jacked up to the max, a gaffe-prone, sometimes lying (though genial and nicely toothed) husk of a compromiser being proffered as the opposition’s best hope ghost candidate — this list can literally go on for another twenty lines.   The stress is palpable, unbearable some days, and people are not holding up well under it.   It certainly doesn’t always bring out the best in most of us.
 

Now Good Americans are actually happy about the deaths of Bad Americans during a plague

I don’t consider myself a particularly evil person.  I get angry, for example when I’m overpowered by somebody who grabs my arm and keeps slapping me hard in the face with my own hand, asking solicitously why I keep hitting myself.   I may have a lower threshold for being bullied than a more highly evolved earthling, but I do my best to remain as mild as I can, under circumstances that sometimes make mildness seem a very unappealing option.    Anger is a good warning system, it seems to me, not to give in the urging of righteous, enflamed feelings and do something outright evil.  And yet…

The other day I saw a piece quoting the evangelical minister of a mega-church, telling his flock, in a packed church, at a time when more reasonable people were “social distancing” all over the world, that faith protected him from COVID-19, that the Lord would protect all the faithful.  He added a nice underscore to the effect that AND YOU CAN TAKE THAT TO THE BANK, PRAISE GOD!   A couple of weeks later this man of God was dead of COVID-19.   It immediately struck me as a rare instance of justice, a wonderful “good for you” joke on a pompous, influential, ignorant jackass.   I posted the short news item here.  

So a fellow citizen, as opinionated as any of us have an absolute right to be, died a horrible death in ironic circumstances and I took in his death only as a great punchline.   Never thought about it any other way.

Served the ignorant snake-oil selling motherfucker right, was my only thought as I posted it here, thinking myself wry, for the few and the misguided to read.   Good joke, no?   “God loves and protects righteous people like me, this so-called virus is God’s message to the accursed non-believers, ignore what these people of no faith are telling you… oh, shit, I … I … can’t breathe…. what in Lord’s name?   Ahhh, get me… to … the h-h-hospital…” 

Is it really funny?  Yes, and definitely also not funny at all.  Is it funny to laugh about a death sentence someone got just for being a fool or a blowhard?   Laughing about it reminded me of what I read years ago about the officially approved humor of the Third Reich, at a time when other humor was increasingly punishable by death [1].   Nazis were not without humor, many of them loved to laugh.  What made them laugh?   A good, spicy Jew joke was surely a winner at the old brauhaus. A joke about Hitler being a little nuts?  The weakest penalty for that was referred to as the “Hitler Cut”– castration.

Hoo, boy, right away, a bee line to that dark place with the Nazis…

Am I saying it’s wrong to laugh when a bully of some kind, while berating you and brandishing a club to beat you with, slips on a banana peel and lands wrong, cracking his skull and spilling his brains out on the sidewalk?   Of course not.  I’m just saying… what have we come to as a species when we “wise apes” celebrate the actual deaths of people who espouse views repugnant to our own?     Put the shoe on the other foot, picture a death sentence for someone you agree with for expressing what you both believe, it’s easy to see the sickness of it.    

Hypocrisy is not a crime, though, in the absence of all other sports and most entertainments during this plague,  it’s become something of our national pastime here in our gruesomely divided states of America.

 

[1] Richard Grunberger had a chapter on Nazi humor, if I recall correctly, in his The Twelve Year Reich, A Social History of Nazi Germany 1933-45.  

About the tome, from Jeff Bezos’s ad:

“In chilling detail, this social history brilliantly demonstrates the awesome power of a brutal government to corrode the human spirit.”–Wall Street Journal
 
“Invaluable for every student of the Nazi era.”–New York Times Book Review
The 12-Year Reich, the first comprehensive social study of the Third Reich, shows what the Nazi regime proffered as the “ideal” society and how the German people responded. Along with the violence, corruption, persecution, public extravaganzas, the ever-present Party, and the cult of the Fuhrer, a ghastly imitation of ordinary life went on.
How did people talk during the Third Reich? What films could they see? What political jokes did they tell? Did Nazi ranting about the role of women (no make-up, smoking, or dieting) correspond with reality? What was the effect of the regime on family life (where fathers were encouraged to inform on sons, and children on parents)? When the country embraced National Socialism in 1933, how did that acceptance impact the churches, the civil service, farmers, housewives, businessmen, health care, sports, education, “justice,” the army, the arts, and the Jews? Using examples that range from the horrifying to the absurd, Grunberger captures vividly the nightmarish texture of the times and reveals how Nazis effectively permeated the everyday lives of German citizens. The result is a brilliant, terrifying glimpse of the people who dwelt along the edges of an abyss-often disappearing into it.

Seth nails the description

Marvelously descriptive opening:

“… threatening to make the same mistakes he made at the start of this crisis… when Donald Trump was elected in 2016 this was exactly the kind of nightmare scenario everyone was afraid of, what would happen in a global crisis if the most powerful man in the world was a racist game show host who’s failed at virtually everything in his life except for pretending to be a successful businessman on TV.   And he’s not even good at pretending, look at him pretending to be president — he just stares directly into the camera and can’t even be bothered to put some fake documents on his desk…”

 

 This British wit does  the full Monty Python job on America’s Greatest Winner, holy cow.  Bear in mind, though, only about 60% of Americans would agree with either of these “funny” guys.

retracting DFS complaint number CSB-2020-01351366

As I emailed the New York State Department of Financial Services earlier today:
I have been unable (last night and so far today) to log into the DFS portal where I submitted this complaint yesterday.   I was told to email your agency here.
I withdraw complaint CSB-2020-01351366.  Healthfirst had nothing to do with this termination of my ACA health insurance.   They might have informed me of the impending loss of my insurance, which they knew of for three weeks before it was terminated, although they likely had no legal duty to do so and every business reason not to.   My complaint should not go to Healthfirst.
 
My insurance was terminated by the NYSOH, for my own oversight, which remained uncorrected for lack of effective notice of the mistake by NYSOH.  I have since been able to correct this oversight and my insurance will be restored effective 5/1/20.  
Please terminate this complaint.  

Low-Income Funnies, Pandemic Edition

Because I get my low-cost health insurance through Obamacare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), I am required to re-enroll every year.  I do this, along with every other low-income New Yorker without employer-based insurance, during the relaxing weeks just before Thanksgiving to just before Christmas.   The ACA is administered in New York State by an overwhelmed agency called the New York State of Health Marketplace.  ACA health coverage is, as we learn, an easy-come easy-go form of health insurance.

The “entitlements” our government generously extends to people of low income are precious, sometimes matters of life or death.   Oddly, such benefits can be instantly clawed back with little or no notice to those who benefit from the programs, if the poor sucker makes a simple but inexcusable mistake.  I used to see this all the time when I represented some of the poorest and most desperate New York City tenants, most of whom I was able to save from homelessness.  

A wheelchair-bound double amputee got a late notice of a “face to face” meeting she was required to attend to keep her housing voucher intact.  She was unable to schedule Access-A-Ride on one day’s notice.  I spent over a year, thirteen times in Brooklyn Housing Court, trying (and in the end succeeding) to restore her housing benefits and prevent her eviction.  The government’s attitude was that this lazy bitch should have found a way to be at that meeting if she wanted continued assistance paying her rent.

So it was for me, years later, that the New York State of Health decided that the fatal December 6 mistake in my 2020 application had gone unaddressed for long enough.  On Good Friday (I’ve had better Fridays) I was informed that my health insurance had been cancelled on March 31, 2020.  I had no notice of the cancellation until I tried to use my insurance again in April.  

From a legal point of view, it is debatable whether I had notice from NYSOH before they terminated my health insurance.   I had the scantest fig leaf of legal notice of my original oversight and what action I needed to take to correct it; two letters in the inbox of New York State of Health’s website, a place otherwise uninsured New Yorkers visit once a year when we are forced to log in to reapply.  

True I had no emails from NYSOH telling me to check the inbox on their website on pain of losing my health insurance during a pandemic (I had several emailed ads for the handy new NYSOH phone app during this time), or any notice by regular mail (as their web-posted letters claimed I’d had) but NYSOH inserted both long, detailed legal warning letters right there in my on-line inbox, on December 7 and March 11, to be used as conclusive proof of notice in the event of a lawsuit by the disgruntled former recipient of government-subsidized health insurance.

I finally learned of my easily fixable mistake, after 74 hours of life-shortening stress and anger, while talking about my legal options with an old friend from law school (an online Article 78 to challenge the arbitrary and capricious cancellation of my insurance without reason given, or notice). Once I discovered it (tip of the hat to you, Jon) it was a matter of about 20 minutes on-line to fix my December 6 omission, re-apply and have my health insurance restored effective May 1, 2020.  [1]

My December 6 omission, by the way, was failing to include proof of income I didn’t receive until several weeks later.  My insurance was, I was informed in the first of these on-line letters I didn’t see, conditional, its continuance beyond March 31 depended on me fixing this mistake before that date, and I simply, willfully, refused to comply with the part of the law I’d forgotten about this time.

If I’d had actual notice of the problem, on the date of their second notice, I could have easily updated my application, fixed the fatal problem in March and avoided any interruption in my health insurance coverage.  

You have to admit, it’s funny as plague-infected shit, in a certain sick and deadly way.  May you and your loved ones never know from such hilarity.   God bless the child that’s got his own and God bless these United Shayyyysssssh.   

 

[1] Fortunately I discovered what I needed to do and re-applied before April 15.  If I’d re-enrolled after the 15th, my insurance would not start until June 1.

Mass death helps the right-wing anti-government crusade, y’all

Graph from yesterday’s New York Times:

Screen shot 2020-04-14 at 2.04.54 PM.png

The graph speaks eloquently for itself.  Two nations are hit, on the same day, by the same pandemic.    In a nation whose federal government is led by a party that believes government is the enemy of freedom, the results are fairly predictable, a radically multiplying death count.

Total deaths in South Korea, where prompt govenrment response flattened the curve effectively:  about 220.   America, no longer a laughingstock, is number one in the world in coronavirus deaths at (as of 4/13/20) 22,000 and climbing.  source

Those of us who want to survive this plague are up against two formidable enemies: a highly infectious virus and a racist, right-wing political movement dedicated to the concentration and protection of vast wealth for the few.  

That the poor are disproportionately dying in this pandemic is a great boon for these Nazi-admiring patriots.  “Fewer votes we need to suppress!   If all these angry fuckers survived, and managed to vote, our people would be voted out instantly.   Fortunately, that won’t happen, because we live in the greatest nation Jesus Christ ever created.   USA!   USA!!!”

Education and Clarity of Language might not help you

Yesterday’s attempt at an Op Ed for the Grey Lady ended with this now deleted paragraph about the seeming impossibility of getting my improperly terminated health insurance back during a raging plague.  Observe the plangent notes of heroic  self-pity:

So I am left to accept my punishment and practice mindfulness.  I sit here lowering my blood pressure, and my heart rate, by thinking of the miracle of communication — how I can sit and convey these deeply fearful things to a stranger, merely by arranging the words properly on a page.  I hope someone will remember I did this when they are lowering my body into a mass grave.   My murdered ancestors would want no less for me.

Admittedly, useless — DELETE! — though I do still greatly appreciate the miracle of written communication, as far as it goes sometimes.  Nothing like writing the situation out clearly when you are in great trouble or danger.

Today I wrote this concise complaint to the NYS Department of Financial Services, the NYS agency that regulates all insurance, financial houses, hedge funds, banks, etc. in New York State,  My latest attempt to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut (though their on-line consumer complaint form immediately fixed a similar insurance termination without notice problem back in January):

I was informed Friday afternoon, when I called my insurer after being told by a doctor that my insurance came up “inactive,” that my Healthfirst health insurance, prepaid through June, had been cancelled, effective March 31 by the New York State of Health Marketplace. According to Healthfirst, no reason for this termination was given by NYSOH.

NYSOH, I was told, had sent Healthfirst notice of their intent to terminate my ACA insurance on March 11.  Neither Healthfirst nor NYSOH provided me any notice of this termination, not prior to the effective date nor since.

I am instructed to call NYSOH, an overwhelmed and unresponsive agency on a good day, where one hears this recording:

New York State of Health is experiencing high call volume.  Because of the public health emergency we are extending the due date for people who are expected to renew before April 15.   You will receive another notice of the new due date before any changes will be made to your coverage.   You do not need to take any action at this time.  

Also, because of a new federal law, no person who currently has Medicaid coverage will lose their coverage during this emergency.  If you are enrolled in Medicaid and get a notice from New York State of Health telling you that your coverage will end after March 18, 2020, you can disregard this notice.  You will have no gap in coverage.  If you have Medicaid you do not need to report any changes to your account except a permanent address change.

I have to assume that termination of prepaid health insurance without notice violates some NYS law, administrative rule or something, in addition to the due process protection of the US Constitution and the PPACA.  One searches for New York’s legal answer to this question in Titles 10 (Health) and 11 (Insurance) of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations  in vain, there is no chapter on point. 

(I was wisely advised to follow my hunch and delete this line:  I am still waiting (since early February) to hear back from your office for a citation to the text of the controlling law.)

Can you help me get my improperly terminated insurance back during this worldwide plague? I’d be eternally grateful.

Alternatively, can you direct me to the nearest rolling donut?

You Have the Right Not To Be Angry

If you are not wealthy in this country, you have a very limited right to express anger publicly.   Anger, like health care, is a privilege in America, not a right.

A wealthy person who feels aggrieved may hire a team of lawyers to legally bludgeon the person who inflicted the injury.   An angry wealthy person may take out a full-page ad in the newspaper of record, calling for vengeance against someone he hates.   Our current president did this, as a private citizen, when he purchased a full-page of the New York Times to call for the death of five boys locked up for, and eventually exonerated of, a heinous crime.    Anger is all the rage among the rich and powerful.  It is a luxury not permitted to the weak.

I was told in no uncertain terms in January, mistakenly it turns out, that my Affordable Care Act health insurance had been properly terminated without notice, for my failure to do something I had no notice of.   I’d been told by the insurance company that everything I needed to do to have 2020 health coverage had been done.  Then they informed me I had no health insurance because I’d failed to pay a “binder” during a once-a-year ten day grace period that nobody told me about.  The invoice made no mention of a do-or-die grace period.

I had no warning, no chance to fix what they told me was fatally broken in our contract.   This lack of a heads-up struck me as fundamentally unfair, as it probably is, except in a world where superhuman corporate “persons” rule over regular puny earthling persons who proceed at our own peril.

I was angry about this, even after the multiple complaints I submitted resulted in the reversal of this irreversible decision.   Within a very short time I had my insurance restored;  in fact, I had a call from the insurance company apologizing and telling me that my insurance had never actually been terminated.   I rescheduled a canceled cardiologist appointment and had an expensive treatment paid for by the insurance company, at about 30% of the uninsured sticker price, with only my co-pay required from me.

Still, I was irked about the lack of accountability for a health insurance company that had made me suffer agonizing anxiety as I exerted myself mightily to find the hidden legal remedy (hint: NYS Department of Financial Services).  I am pretty sure that the “mistaken” termination had been unlawful, this seems clear by how quickly the final determination against me was changed.  

To my dismay, nobody I spoke to in the city, state or federal bureaucracy could tell me what that violated law was, not its name, its existence, what exact patient protections it contained.  I wanted to see the text of the law, to read the precise patient protections my health insurance provider had ignored, to such unfair and frightening effect.  It is apparently not the right of a powerless citizen to have this kind of information.

I began lashing out in letters and emails, and on the phone.  A Resolution Specialist from Healthfirst called and promised me a written apology and a record of the many calls I’d had with the insurance company, which would allow me to trace exactly what had been done to me and how it had been corrected.   I wanted a roadmap of how the unknowable law had been violated.  I feel a strong need to inform others in my situation of their rights and legal remedies.   None of what I was promised by Healthfirst was delivered.  

I became increasingly unsettled, as my case was repeatedly “escalated” and never resolved.  I included some inflammatory remarks in letters and phone calls and asked pointed questions about some very obvious things.  

For example: due process is guaranteed in our constitution.  It is fundamental to a free society that people have the right to some kind of hearing, some process, before they can be deprived of something they legally own.  In my case, I’d re-enrolled for coverage in time and subsequently paid for my health insurance through June.  How was it legal to void our contract without notice to the consumer?

As if in answer to this question, I was informed on Good Friday, during this pandemic (not a very good Friday for me) that my insurance had been terminated again, without so much as an email to inform me of this sobering fact, and without any reason given, effective March 31, 2020.

I learned this when I had a call from a doctor I was scheduled to see (over the phone) on Wednesday telling me my insurance came back “inactive.”  When I called Healthfirst to snarlingly enquire, the rep confirmed that they had been instructed to terminate my insurance by the New York State of Health Marketplace, the state’s sole purveyor of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act health insurance policies.

In the absence of law, those with the power to do so can freely oppress those who are powerless.   If you have no power, you must not be angry about this.  Anger is so bad for your health, your immune system, all of your relationships!

I was told the New York State of Health contacted Healthfirst on March 11, instructing the private corporation to terminate its contract with the patient.  No reason was given.   Any day between March 11 and March 25 would have been an ideal time for either or these entities to inform the patient of the jeopardy he was about to face (no health insurance during a worldwide plague) and the need for immediate action on his part to prevent the loss of the insurance he’d already paid for.  

There was no email, phone call or letter — none from Healthfirst, none from the so-called New York State of Health.   Healthfirst sent me a notice that my ongoing cardiac treatment had been approved through July, an invoice showing that my premiums were paid through June, and numerous instant email reminders that I’d not taken the voluntary customer satisfaction survey after each call.   Not a peep about the insurance cancelled ten days before I found out about it when a doctor’s office alerted me to it.

Had the doctor’s office not called, I’d still be blissfully unaware that my health insurance has been quietly null and void for thirteen days and counting.  Seems there should have been some legal process due before a patient is deprived of healthcare during a pandemic, no?

The well-paid CEO of Healthfirst would be perfectly within her rights to be furious at me, after being subjected to provocative lines like these, no matter how otherwise accurate they might be:

A corporate “person” is an appetitive psychopath, without conscience or remorse, driven to devour and only constrained by the rare regulation in place to restrain the gnawing impulse to maximize profits, a corporation’s only legal imperative.

The removal of health insurance during a plague is arguably an excessive punishment for an impolitic expression of something that is well-known: private health insurance corporations have every incentive to cull from their rolls older, low-income patients who cost them far more in medical care than they pay in premiums.   That’s just good business sense, however else one might feel about it.  

Why the New York State of Health intervened a month ago, as I was told by Healthfirst the other day, with no reason given, to terminate the ACA insurance of a customer who had re-enrolled and completed his end of the contract with a private insurance company is a question I will not be able to get an answer to any time soon.   During this terrible plague, everyone is overwhelmed, many mistakes are made, lines for help are very long and it is best to stay calm, even when provoked to great fear and anger.  Particularly if you are powerless in a state ruled by the bottom line.

That said, it would be a wonderful thing for citizens to actually be allowed to know the laws that protect them from arbitrary and capricious decisions with terrifying consequences.  It’s kind of maddening that we are not, if I might be so bold.