Politblogo

A whiff of uninsurance

A small bureaucratic error has given me something to write about.  While I'm in the US, my employer is providing me with reasonably good health insurance, which is the normal way that people who have decent health insurance get it in this country.  However, I had a relatively trivial change of status within my reasonably large employer, for which this time's paperwork was apparently handled incorrectly by the responsible parties (not me).   Incorrectly: such that the department in charge of benefits (like insurance) now thinks that I am no longer with my employer.   Even though I am, and all the other paperwork is correct and everything else is working fine.

However, it has given me the tiniest glimpse as to the life of the genuinely uninsured (which I am technically not, since I'd be retroactively paid any benefit denied while they sort this out).  It isn't completely the case, as you may already know, that there is no social safety net in the US.  There is one.  There may actually be too many, in a sense. 

You see, a good analogy for how the safety net works for health care in the US is with, well, a safety net.   It's quite possible that the US safety net uses more rope than the Canadian one does.  But it isn't a single health care safety net.  It's actually a layered set of safety nets, one on top of the other---but with a very wide spacing in each net.  So you're likely to fall through each individual one.  If you're deft and lucky, you can arrange yourself to hang on to one of them before you hit the bottom, but it's harder.

A manifestation of this happens to be the insurance cancellation letter I received from my employer's benefits department.  It contains a lengthy form with instructions in order to sign up for something called COBRA.  (I'm not kidding.)  COBRA, aside from being GI Joe's nemesis organisation, represents one portion of the bewilderingly complex system of health care stopgaps and "bridges", so to speak, between the different levels of stopgaps.  Use of the form to sign up for COBRA itself comes with its own goodly list of instructions and limitations.

I'm given to understand that the paperwork burden for things like COBRA is even worse for the employer (not that I'm crying for them).  If you have a reasonably large employer, as I do, it can be relatively streamlined.  But if you're a small business, I'm given to understand that these kinds of things can be quite the crushing burden.

Of course, as a user of the system, it can be pretty annoying.  Compounded with the loss of your existing insurance, of course, the paperwork pales into insignficance, since COBRA basically means you get the rate of your employer's plan, but without the subsidy.  (If you try to buy decent insurance yourself, it's much much more expensive.)  COBRA is only useful if you have a good severance package and/or plan to transition to other employment right quick and want to keep seeing the same doctors on the same plan.  Otherwise, you fall to the next safety net, and the next, until you slip through the cracks.

Some of you have undoubtedly witnessed major health care events that have happened to you or your loved ones in the recent past.  Now imagine attempting to handle these difficult situations...but with all this extra uncertainty and paperwork and complicated "bridging" strategies.   Let's leave out the economic arguments for universal single payer health care.  Let's even leave out the moral requirement of distributing health care fairly and the corruption of true liberty that occurs when it isn't.  That alone---the social burden of complexity---is to me a pretty good argument for single payer health care.  Once you insert other third-party entities into the system, you have to assemble all these complicated bridge policies and administrative systems, and it just spirals out of control.

(And, in case you were wondering, if I'm wrong and it's a major hassle to get back my health insurance rather than flipping a switch in a database, I'm high-tailing it out of here back to the True North Strong and Free.  Furthermore, and confidential to the Canadian readers: don't get a swollen head.)

Movie review: The Good Shepherd

This is going to be a pretty brief review.  Today, I saw the recent movie called The Good Shepherd in the movie theatre.   For those not in the know, Matt Damon plays a CIA bigwig involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion, and it's full of flashbacks to how the CIA got started, spy-Matt Damon's career from a Yale Bonesman, etc. 

My brother saw it shortly before I did, and here is his review (published without permission, since I never ask my brother permission for anything):

Oh, I am Matt Damon and I am SO SAD about how my machinations to dominate the world are ruining my personal life.  Oh poor poor me!  Feel sorry for me!  See how my wife and son no longer like me.  Don't you feel bad for me?

It is to be read in a falsetto voice.  Don't blame me.

So, let's just say that there is a grain of truth to my brother's review.  I don't think that spy-Damon felt sorry for himself as such, or it wasn't very clear.  Well, it wasn't clear that he felt anything at all, for the most part.  But as the audience, we were expected to sympathize with the plight of his family.  Well and good, but I still think that a better object of my sympathy would be his both explicit and implied victims, and, of course, those of his KGB counterpart.

It was still entertaining, and I don't regret paying for it over some other movie.  Long, but mostly worth the length.  I enjoyed the way they talk in code, except that it isn't exactly very subtle.

The Wonderfulosity of Cheese, Part 8: The Return; or, Thank Heavens for Argentina

I know, I know.  My throngs of adoring fans have been missing this feature for a long time, I'm sure.  Well, you shall once again catch a small glimpse of the Mind of Mandos on fromagerrific fun. 

While I haven't been writing this feature---conveniently available in my "Food and Drink" category*---for a while, I have not stopped searching for interesting cheeses.  I just had to share my latest find with you, which combines the taste of a high-quality aged imported cheese with the affordability of a cheap store-brand domestic cheese: Argentinian parmesan reggianito.  This is the Argentinian knock-off of the Italian (obviously) parmesan reggiano, so named because, apparently, it comes in 15 pound wheels rather than the Italian 80 pound wheels.  It is less than half the price of the Italian version at least where I bought it, and this brings it into a price range comparable with generic non-imported non-aged cheeses.

But this is definitely an aged cheese, and for the price, it is an excellent buy.  It is primarily intended as a grating cheese as most parmesan cheeses are, but it is not a particularly hard parmesan, and can be sliced and eaten on crackers or toast.  It has a balanced, slightly nutty flavour, not too sharp, but with a hint of a sting.  The outer layer of this aged cheese is dryer and nuttier-tasting.  Being a grating cheese, the slices have a grainy texture.

I just melted it over toast, and it melts with a very nice consistency.  It retains its flavour, becoming slightly more sharp and sour---which is should.   All in all, a very good cheese for a low price.  Too bad that place where I bought it from is not usually convenient for me to go to, but when next I visit it, I'm definitely buying another wedge.

*The name of the category was what was provided by TypePad in its initial selection of categories.  Interestingly, I have so far only ever reviewed food, not drink.  Curious, eh?

Airlines and airports - a review

(Yes, yes, I'll eventually get you your pictures.  Geez.  Can't you give a guy some time to even organize his hundreds of photos?)

So, as you can imagine, going to specific locations in South Asia from the You Knighted States can get pretty complicated indeed!  One generally doesn't have direct flights at that distance even between major locations, and even a convenient indirect route can be expensive.  I travelled between India and Pakistan as well, and while the two countries are technically next to each other, in travel terms, and Pakistanis watch a whole lotta Indian soap operas, they may as well be on different continents.

Consequently, I've had an opportunity to sample several combinations of airlines and airports in the "Old" World (hah!), and I have even been able to build up a thorough impression of some of them.  And I will briefly share with you some insights.

• I took United Airlines to Munich on one leg of my voyage.  I fly United domestically quite often, and even once in first/business class, and, as expected, international economy (I'm not made of money!) was a little bit closer to domestic business class than to domestic economy.  The flight was uneventful, the entertainment selections adequate.  However, I had bulkhead seats.  Now, if I were so worried about legroom, I'd have been happy about this.  But I am not, shall we say, narrowly built.  Bulkhead seats,  because they are at the front, have the entertainment system and tray table built into the armrests of the seats, meaning that precious inches of, er, spread are lost.  The food is boring neutral-Americanish food, but it was acceptable.
• Munich airport itself was a relatively acceptable experience.  American arrivals are in one terminal, and international departures are in another.  The terminals are not connected by a bridge, bus, or train system, and consequently it is not possible to make the sort of connection that we were making without immigrating to Germany on tourist visa status, which is trivial for Canadians to get right there at the passport control gates (this is the case for most of Europe).  The passport control guard was friendly and helpful, as were most of the airline staff, and stereotypically German Lufthansa employees. 
• We had a few hours in Munich, and we window shopped at the exterior mall attached to the other terminal before entering.  We were curious about the grocery store there and explored it and confirmed that everything does cost twice as much in Germany.  We had to pass passport control again to exit Germany into the other international terminal---exit control is unfamiliar to most North Americans but seems to be the norm in the rest of the world.  Munich is a new and underutilized airport, and parts of this other terminal were built but completely abandoned.  Food choices were few beyond the security checkpoint (competent, helpful staff!), and we should have eaten in the mall food court outside.  The airport is connected to Munich via Munich's metro, and I regret not spending a couple of hours in the city, but the rest of our group thought it was a bad idea for their ersatz travel arranger to run off without them (and they were too tired to explore on their own).
• Completely opposite to the Munich experience was the Frankfurt experience on another leg of our complicated journey.  Frankfurt is a massively overused, undercapacity airport that is cold and dirty and has little to recommend itself.  Whose big idea was it to let M. C. Escher design an airport?  Let's just say that while I've had bad airport experiences, I have never felt so maltreated by airline employees as there.  It was a very, very negative experience.
• Lufthansa sucks.  Compared to the other airlines we took, Lufthansa's seats were very narrow, as though Germans were little people or something.  Leg room was OK, but even business class looked cramped.  The food was boring, and they didn't have individual entertainment systems like every other modern airline has even in economy class.  We all had to watch The Devil Wears Prada.  At least the flight attendants were polite.  I almost rather they had not been, so that I would have been prepared for the Frankfurt experience.  I won't fly Lufthansa again unless it's seriously cheaper, which it ought to be.
• I had several flights on Emirates.  The experience is totally different from Lufthansa.  Seats were for the most part wide and comfortable.  The individual entertainment system was very comprehensive with more selection than you could really want.  Some of the planes allow you to play videogames with other seats.  The food was good and plentiful, and the service was friendly and prompt.  I'd definitely fly them again.  Emirates is supposed to be expensive, but I did a great deal of research on this trip, and it was the cheapest option to get to Karachi at that time.
• Dubai airport is good, but it's still overrated.  People who travel more frequently than we were telling us how wonderful the airport was, but it didn't even have the same variety of restaurants that some of the major North American airports do...which is not saying much, of course.  If we wanted to check into an internal hotel, than it might have been wonderful.  The duty free stores were OK but I don't understand the fuss.   Nevertheless, I have few complaints about Dubai airport.   The food and services were very reasonably priced.  The best thing about it was the free and ubiquitous wireless Internet access; in most airports, they charge you $10 for a little bit of access, which is extremely annoying.  Not so in Dubai.  Lastly, you aren't allowed into the gate lounges until they're ready to board you, basically, and there isn't enough seating outside the gate lounges.  They obviously expect you to shop.
• The airport in Karachi ran surprisingly well for something run in Pakistan.  I mean, it was, for the most part, a normal large airport.  People still didn't follow the rules (Pakistanis don't believe in rules), but at least things worked.
• The airport in Chennai was surprisingly dilapidated for a major city in India.  Bathrooms are disgusting.  Efficient and orderly, at least in our experience, but oddly dilapidated.
• Finally, United Airlines was OK.  For the most part.  Well, on our way back we had a flight attendant with a mental toothache, so to speak.  Eventually, she divulged the reason for her mental toothache, and I sympathize.  Capitalism sux.  But the airline was OK.  Not spectacular, not bad.  Individual entertainment, but not the selection or quality of Emirates.  Food was whatever the local caterers brought.  Do not trust them when they say that it is "turkey, not ham."  It is probably ham.

That last, you may wonder why I didn't order the halal meal.  Well, it goes like this: for stuff I don't cook myself, I'm not all that strict about halalitude.  A lot of North American Muslims are like that.  If I ordered the halal meal, I'd have been condemned to eating beans and rice on all the non-Emirates flights (Emirates is 100% halal, they emphasize it in their literature, and I believe them).  Usually, the airlines have a meal that isn't pork.  We had one exception which my pork radar was easily able to detect.

Did you miss me?

Obviously, you did.

However, I am back in the USA from my trip to Karachi, Pakistan and Madras/Chennai, India.  I spent the last couple of days packing those of my family who had traveled with me back to their own final destinations (I am the family travel agent), and life returneth to normal.

Some of you in the blogosphere seem to have been enjoying yourselves.  I did poke my head in from time to time, but my access to the Internet wasn't very consistent.  I deeply resent whoever decided to replace Jason Cherniak's Ritalin with sugar pills while I was away.  The Anglo-American feminist blogosphere has gone through a couple of more Alamos.  And so on. 

I may even be persuaded to post some photos of my trip eventually.  Some of you have already head about my doings in Asia, which I shall henceforth dub "South Asia 06-07: The Landed Gentry Tour."   Let's just say that I survived the traffic.