"He blamed UHC for incompetently managing his care, so he chose to settle his account with the person who is literally, by his title and position, the man with whom the proverbial buck stopped."
From what I've read, he wasn't insured by UHC.
As for whatever disabling injuries he has sustained, including those from possibly compromised medical care, I bet you live with far more pain from your many fractures and soft tissue injuries.
Two legitimate questions:
Have health insurance companies been incentivized by the Affordable Care Act to deny claims?
Who poses a greater threat to society, health insurance executives or Alexander Soros?
The problem with that limit is that it removes any incentive for insurers to keep costs lower, since the only way they can make more money on their fully-insured books of business (where the 80-85% loss ratio requirement applies) is by increasing top line premium. It’s a sort of nasty unintended consequence of the ACA. The other thing they’ve done is try to classify more and more things under the claims side (the 80-85% part).
Was it un-intended? It's not like half the population or more wasn't saying ACA was going to be a disaster and one of the reasons why was explicitly because the government was going to require insurance. Everyone and their uncle told me though that I have to have auto insurance, so what do I know?
Depends on the type of insurer. I think for profit insurers are 80 percent, not for profit are 90 percent. In 2023, United Health paid out 82 percent in claims. They run on about 8 percent net profit. Should they be zero? I don't have that answer, but I don't see too many complaining during COVID how much net profit Amazon was raking in.
Claim denial waaaay predates the ACA. While it's gotten worse over time, I don't see any data that it got worse suddenly around ACA, and I don't recall any concerns about it from corporate (I was working for a large national partially private-equity owned ER staffing group at the time of its passage). If anything, ACA limited some of the denial reasons (no more "preexisting conditions") and gave people more grounds for appeals...though apparently only a tiny %age actually bother to do so.
If anything, the biggest effect ACA has had has been to use taxpayer money to fund people to...buy private health insurance. (Full disclosure: my son is poor enough to qualify for such a subsidy.)
The subsidy is a tax credit. If you earn more than what your tax credit allows, which often happens to the successful self employed, you get a nice surprise April 15.
Only at some income levels. Once you hit legit poverty (but don't qualify for Medicaid) the government pays...and if you end up making too much, you have to pay them back.
This was gameable in the early 2010's if one had both tax-deferred and after-tax assets to juggle. I retired from my career at 57 yo and by limiting taxable income by drawing down after-tax money to live and utilizing tax-exempt investments to limit ACA-classified income, my income was near zero. I then took the appropriately-sized IRA distribution to have enough ACA income to still qualify for the maximum tax credit. This level of income was just slightly higher than that covered by the standard deduction and exemptions, so I didn't pay much income tax on the IRA distribution either. I definitely lost some investment yield, but was easily offset by the effective $18 to 24K I saved in health insurance premiums per year. It's the one time in my life I took a government benefit I didn't really deserve or need, but it was legal.
They were incentivized to deny claims before, the whole reason why it was included in the ACA to begin with. If you're primary fiduciary responsibility is to your share holders, why would you wouldn't you want to find out ways to deny claims?
Back pain can be excruciatingly painful, there's no reason to minimize whatever he had. Seems like a lot of the current news cycle is just speculation about his reasons though.
I'm aware of how excruciatingly painful back pain can be. I've had lower back pain since I was 13 and ran backwards into a cement wall while playing racquetball. Haven't been able to sleep on my stomach since then. I have a disc that sometimes bulges and within the last year I started getting sciatica. There's a pinched nerve in my right shoulder that acts up sometimes and the inflammation runs up the side of my head.. Not long ago, when I rolled over to my left in bed the sciatica hurt and if I rolled over to the right my neck and head hurt. As an adult I've had a head on bicycle collision that damaged both my upper and lower back and once fell 30 feet into a river bed (w/ my 10 year old daughter) and when my head hit the log at the bottom of the ravine, it snapped my neck back farther than the factory specifications intended.
Some nights when I got to bed I literally laugh about the number of things that hurt getting into bed.
Pain is very hard to measure. I'm sure if they could measure back pain, insurance companies would deny even more claims.
Insurance companies are always going to be incentivized to deny claims. Does government solve this? Medicare/Medicaid (and of course the VA) all deny claims. Non-profit? They deny claims. Employer ran insurance? They deny claims.
What is a reasonable amount of claim denials? ( This is like asking "What is the fair share of taxes that billionaires should pay")
Nice work on the fitness front! It's definitely important for the long game. I'm 55, and a slightly better diet this year knocked off fifteen pounds of desk weight... which then paid huge dividends on the mountain bike, which THEN (combined with some iron) led to some of my best early-season skiing in years. (Now my son doesn't have to wait quite as long in both pursuits.) This bad writing is all to say that mind, body, and soul are a solid personal trinity, IMHO.
I’m not surrounded by boorish idiots, but lethargic working teams.
Part of it is that probably 2/3 of the team is speaking in their non-native language and having to process everything through that barrier, but I’m continually frustrated by the pace of discussion and decision-making in work meetings. It feels like I’m swimming in molasses at times.
Any time you can take a fifth of the weight off, your body will be happier, your joints and cardiovascular will be happier.
I am surprised that there isn’t more vigilante type of violence visiting the uber well to do who work in healthcare, not that I condone it, but a single illness can wipe out an American family’s life savings and make them homeless, that is insane.
Americans' diets are mostly terrible--and the high fructose corn syrup is only a piece of the problem. So much of what the average American eats is artificial, lacking needed nutrients, and filled with sugar or simple carbs--which are sugar--and chemical compounds used for flavoring.
Thanks to the example my mother gave us while growing up, under which we chafed a bit--my siblings and I all developed healthy diets in adulthood. I expunged the remaining artificial stuff--of which there wasn't much--over the last decade. And in the last year or two I've increased the diversity of healthy food--multiple types of nuts, beans, whole grains, vegetables, leafy greens, fruits, berries, and I may be missing one or two categories, along with some nonfat yogurt and fish. I don't miss the stuff I don't eat anymore, not ice cream, not bacon, both of which I used to refer to as America's favorite foods, not pasta, which I loved, especially as a kid... the one thing I'd HATE to have to give up are my espresso macchiatos.
While I wasn't trying to lose weight, those recent changes were accompanied by my weight dropping from slightly over 140 to slightly over 130 (I'm 5'9", and an inch shorter than I was a decade ago). The last time I was 130 was 49 years ago, at the end of my bicycle trip from Seattle to Boston, on which I'd started out weighing 125.
I switched from cycling to running as my major form of exercise at 40, and now, 31 years later, my dog and I probably average a little over 20 miles a week.
Sounds like you are in great shape, overall. One thing you might find is that doing a minimal amount of strength training could help your resiliency. Less likely to get hurt moving a box or falling if you have enough strength to shrug it off. You're so light and eat so clean that it's really unlikely you'd put on any mass that'd take away from your running.
You're probably right about that. I'm not sure I'd be able to add any mass, though. The only time that happened was on that bicycle trip. As an adolescent I did a lot of pushups and pull-ups and I don't think that ever added to my muscle mass, although I won't swear to it.
The US issue with healthcare is like with higher ed: we approach it like consumers (we want what we want, where and how we want it), so the market treats us like consumers.
Go to, say, Denmark, and schedule an elective surgery on public insurance, or find a public university slot to major in an Asian language, and see how long you wait.
I'm not saying that's bad. But we like "to speak with your manager."
As for any insurance company (not just in health), I think they should essentially run like a credit union, which might be MORE expensive in some situations, but would theoretically not be because of shareholders.
There have been a few efforts to push Medicare for all, but they've gone nowhere. I think we're the only advanced nation that lacks universal healthcare. The vulnerability to being wiped out by illness certainly IS insane. And richest man in the world Elon Musk wants to take it away from us so that he can pay lower taxes.
how come i've been told that if i pay by check it's less than half as much as it'd be if i put it on insurance? wish i could remember where it was doggone it--or why i was told about the option.
Probably at the pharmacy. The drug pricing is even more insane, with the “pharmacy benefit managers” between the insurance companies and pharmacies. Cash price can be lower than the insurance copay. More scams.
I had BCBS through a government job. I saw a specialist at a different hospital system in late summer 2020 and the clerk didn't bother to add any of my paperwork, so I got a letter saying something like "We see that you are uninsured: We can offer you a cash discount: just pay X% of the list price." The amount they offered (without any negotiation on my part) was actually slightly LOWER than the BCBS negotiated rate.
But this could still be a lot of money (no "out of pocket maximum") and there's no guarantee that the hospital WON'T try to collect the full sticker price (aka the "Sheik Rate."
The gap between what they offered and the BCBS rate reflected the fact (a) you'll actually pay it, and (b) will pay it without costing them "x" hours of paperwork.
Yes, but I was somewhat surprised to get any discount: I thought that 90% of the point of medical "insurance" was to join the cartel and get a group discount.
And even if you have insurance, you go to a hospital that is in your insurance plan, only to find out later that the doctors are separate from the hospital and are not in your plan. THAT should be illegal.
Largely by creating an arbitration system that the government tried to heavily rig on behalf of the payers, who responded by kicking docs out of network left and right...so it became less of a surprise that the docs were out of network. :/
My back also hurts occasionally, however instead of shooting up BCBS IL, I’ll be* whacking the CEOs of Culver’s, Portillo’s, my local butcher, and if I’m honest, the ice cream shop down the block, for making me make myself so porcine.
"he couldn’t even have sex with all the cute girls who liked him"
complaining your beverage isnt sufficiently chilled while others die of thirst
" I eat nothing “Chomps”, the 100-calorie, no-sugar beef stick, and mozzarella cheese"
sounds like gentrified pemmican
"giving Andrew-Tate-ish advice to all ACFers under the age of 30"
theres like five of us now so remember to tren hard eat clen anavar give up
while the new honda pilot thing might be better than the bronco will it fall into the same problem of the ridgeline of being what people actually need but not want
Congrats on getting your weight down, its better for your joints as well as heart, etc. But the 90 mins a day routine must be getting old. Find some ways to mix it up with other activities. And being about 10 years older than you, keeping in shape and the weight off is more of a bitch every passing year.
Thanks for the book review; will have to look that one up.
I think the mortality vs weight curve is U-shaped. Muscle mass helps with insulin sensitivity and improves general utility. Mr. Burns and Janne Holmén are not aspirational physiques.
The “flotilla of turbo fours” is a big reason why I bought my wife the last V6 Camry.
I travel for work, and “Safe Girl” needs a reliable, appliance vehicle with local dealer support because I am not around to help M-F.
She likes sedans and when a perfect, 30,000 mile 2018 XLE V6 showed up at my local dealer a couple years ago, I snatched it.
And now, here we are, all Camrys are 4 cylinder hybrids, Accords all have CVTs, and Nissans and Hyundai/Kias are just not something I want in my driveway.
So glad I bought it when I did.
Wife loves it.
I’m with you, the V6 Honda trucklets with traditional automatic transmissions seem to be the sweet spot for plebes like us.
I guess I need to wake up and smell the coffee of the faithful departed and bury the hatchet because there is no need to argue, everyone else is doing it, why can’t we?
Honda’s implementation of the ZF transmission blows. We have the 9 speed in our Odyssey and it sucks compared to the 6 speed traditional auto in our cx-5.
It always hunting around for gears and slow to respond. I hear the 10 speed ZF Honda implementation is just as bad. It’s probably all due to programming it for emissions and fuel economy.
My best friend has an Accord with a CVT (which replaced an Accord with a stick that got smashed while parked). And as much as I prefer a stick--which I have in my '08 Civic--his Accord is a really nice car.
I can’t say I’m well acquainted with them, but I haven’t really heard anything bad about Honda’s CVT…
And to the OP’s point, those four cylinder Toyota hybrids with the eCVT is one of the most reliable powertrains really ever made. They go to hundreds of thousands of miles without much fuss.
1. Terrorism charges are ludicrous. If know he wrote messages on his shell casings, but are we saying those designed to strike fear i to the hearts of healthcare executives nationwide? Is THAT who was getting terrorized?
2. That said. I can see why a manhunt was more warranted. It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong, it was clearly a targeted assassination and one could expect it might not be the last…
3. As someone who shaved down a comparable percentage of body weight recently, my congratulations on your hard work. It’s feels great I am sure. Well done.
4. I hope you are 100% accurate with your Passport prediction.
“Ford Bronco Sport to be as successful as it’s been — 127k units in the past year! — and all of that has to be laid at the doorstep of the ultra-butch styling”
surely you didn’t mean to add the “Sport” to Ford Bronco because the Sport looks a lot less ultra butch and a lot more ultra-bitch.
At any rate, I’ve often said that the problem with Honda is that they figure out what the average person absolutely needs, and gives you 98-102% of exactly that. Not more. Whereas many European and American automakers say “there’s no fucking way you need triple lockers or a 179mph top speed or an 18k towing capacity, but here it is anyways, rock on you crazy bastard.” I’m sure the Passport is lovely, but it’s entirely too left brained for my taste and dollars.
"I’ve often said that the problem with Honda is that they figure out what the average person absolutely needs, and gives you 98-102% of exactly that. Not more."
This is a very wise observation, and under Soichiro's leadership when CAFE targets were ambitious and fuel prices were high, a generous dollop of ACBC's "add lightness" resulted in some well-made and fun Civics and Accords (the wishbone suspensions fall into the the "you crazy bastard" department). But it definitely does not work for Canyonero intenders.
And they’ve gone very far in that direction by doing such things as dropping a higher-output option in the Accord which had been available for literally DECADES!
It’s a good looking little thing. In typical Ford fashion, it’s a true piece of garbage but at least it is good looking garbage. The ones with a locker and low range are shockingly competent off road too, given that it’s little more than a final gen Focus with a lift kit.
I appreciate Ford for doing fun color/design things. The new California Special mustang has these blue highlights everywhere that I don’t know actually work very well, but are quite distinctive.
Id take my Bronco Sport as a Robins Egg Blue Heritage Edition, with the blue checkered cloth interior. Can’t get enough of the white wheels on them.
i tried building a california special mustang on fords website and for some unexplainable reason you cant get that package with blue painted calipers despite being the exact same caliper as standard
Terrible song that was played incessantly on the radio back then. Today they'd call that band Temu CS&N.
Chestnut Mare by Roger McGuinn also annoys me. Unlike the pablum mentioned above it's a good song, but it just got overplayed back when we had fewer choices to program our music.
Back in the AOL days I actually was able to correspond with Roger McGuinn and send him a baseball cap that I embroidered with a Rickenbacker guitar. He was very gracious. Seemed to be serious about his religious faith, as well.
I was telling a friend the other day that when we were kids watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the Beatles were young adults. Now that we're old, they're in their 80s if they're still around.
I saw Bob Dylan play about this time last year in Huntington, WV. He's 81 now I think. His voice was in better shape than I expected and he certainly gave a spirited performance (he sat at the piano for most of the show).
I just saw that Rickey Henderson, the premier base stealer in baseball history, just died at 65.
I hate AI. I'm trying to figure out where and when that happened and so far I've been told that the "Concrete Carousel" is the Olympic stadium in LA, Candlestick Park, or the old stadium in Cleveland.
One app told me that Henderson hit a leadoff homerun against Cleveland on Aug. 21, 1983, but the records show that Cleveland played Seattle that day when Henderson was playing for Oakland.
Candlestick Park, the old stadium in Cleveland, and the Oakland Athletics are, like the late, great Mr. Henderson, no longer here.
"Six months ago, however, my tailor gave me the quite unwelcome news that I was now officially “portly”,"
Welcome to the club, husky boy.
Cue Richard Lewis' "Husky" routine.
I was schlepped by my mother to every boy's clothing store in southeastern Michigan to try every husky, short, and portly boys' suit available therein for my upcoming Bar Mitzvah, to no avail. I'm built a little like a chimp, I have a long trunk and short, stubby legs, with enough curve in my spine to give me a fat ass. Finally, about two weeks before the event, my dad took me to the men's department at the downtown Hudson's store. A very professional salesman found me a dark grey, pinstriped, double breasted suit that not only fit well with basic alterations, I thought it looked a little bit gangster.
As far as I know, no Purple Gang members went to my family's synagogue. I did hear stories, though, about them showing up to Shaarey Tzedek on the High Holidays, packing heat. My Aunt Jackie's first husband did show up to my Bar Mitzvah wearing a Sherlock Holmes looking deer stalker outfit, but this was the late '60s after all.
The son of a former neighbor who is dear to me was celebrating becoming a Bar Mitzvah at the minyan of a local secondary yeshiva. Very strictly orthodox, all the men and boys were in black suits with black hats and white shirts. It was July so I was wearing one of my summer suits, either a light blue linen or my grey seersucker, with a straw hat and white New Balance shoes. Every kid in the room and plenty of the adults were gawking at me.
And that's just the budget line for James Brown and his band. Pun not intended.
My millennial niece grew up in Augusta, GA when JB was hard into his crack addiction and making news. When she was visiting she and I had an errand and I popped in my James Brown CD so she would know what he used to be famous for. "It has a good beat" said the 15-year old.
I wanted to but my father said, "No." These days I have a couple of black dress shirts that I wear with my black suit. Typically no tie. I like the look.
Yes, elevator operators and professional salespeople. Hudson's was a special company. They sponsored the Independance Day fireworks and the Thanksgiving Day parade (Rube Weiss, who was one of Soupy Sales' costars, was Santa), and also displayed what was the world's largest U.S. flag on the side of the building for the 4th of July.
I recently saw a real estate listing for a very expensive home that had an elevator that used brass doors salvaged from the Hudson's store.
Ever go to one of Hudson's warehouse sales?
The top floor of the downtown Hudson's was used for special displays like the Christmas thing, which I might have attended once or twice.
Northland opened the year I was born, about two miles from my house near where Outer Drive hits Vassar. When I was in high school, it was a popular hang out for kids. When I go downtown, on my way to the Lodge I drive by the site, which is being redeveloped as joint retail/residential.
If you want to see the Marshall Fredericks Boy & Bear sculpture that was at Northland it's now in the atrium of the Southfield public library.
I genuinely hope I'm wrong but doesn't the new Passport have the new DOHC V6? In the Pilot it uses cam phasing for vvt but no more VTEC. I Found a 2015 Accord Coupe V6 with 28k miles that I got for $12.5K because the guy needed the money. After a cold air intake that J35 sounds so damn good I'm having a hard time ever saying goodbye.
"Terrorism." Our nation is a big fat joke. I expect more of this.
Kudos on the weight loss. I would suggest 5x5 Stronglifts, but it favors squats and your erector set knee won't like it. I loathe machine based cardio. PX90 and T25 are tolerable.
That Honda reminds me of the late 80's Pathfinders. They were freakin' everywhere.
"He blamed UHC for incompetently managing his care, so he chose to settle his account with the person who is literally, by his title and position, the man with whom the proverbial buck stopped."
From what I've read, he wasn't insured by UHC.
As for whatever disabling injuries he has sustained, including those from possibly compromised medical care, I bet you live with far more pain from your many fractures and soft tissue injuries.
Two legitimate questions:
Have health insurance companies been incentivized by the Affordable Care Act to deny claims?
Who poses a greater threat to society, health insurance executives or Alexander Soros?
Isn’t there a provision that a minimum of 85% of premiums collected have to be paid back as claims paid or some such?
80%, but yes.
You have to love a business so inherently profitable they make you put four fifths back in the hopper!
The problem with that limit is that it removes any incentive for insurers to keep costs lower, since the only way they can make more money on their fully-insured books of business (where the 80-85% loss ratio requirement applies) is by increasing top line premium. It’s a sort of nasty unintended consequence of the ACA. The other thing they’ve done is try to classify more and more things under the claims side (the 80-85% part).
Was it un-intended? It's not like half the population or more wasn't saying ACA was going to be a disaster and one of the reasons why was explicitly because the government was going to require insurance. Everyone and their uncle told me though that I have to have auto insurance, so what do I know?
Depends on the type of insurer. I think for profit insurers are 80 percent, not for profit are 90 percent. In 2023, United Health paid out 82 percent in claims. They run on about 8 percent net profit. Should they be zero? I don't have that answer, but I don't see too many complaining during COVID how much net profit Amazon was raking in.
Claim denial waaaay predates the ACA. While it's gotten worse over time, I don't see any data that it got worse suddenly around ACA, and I don't recall any concerns about it from corporate (I was working for a large national partially private-equity owned ER staffing group at the time of its passage). If anything, ACA limited some of the denial reasons (no more "preexisting conditions") and gave people more grounds for appeals...though apparently only a tiny %age actually bother to do so.
If anything, the biggest effect ACA has had has been to use taxpayer money to fund people to...buy private health insurance. (Full disclosure: my son is poor enough to qualify for such a subsidy.)
The subsidy is a tax credit. If you earn more than what your tax credit allows, which often happens to the successful self employed, you get a nice surprise April 15.
Only at some income levels. Once you hit legit poverty (but don't qualify for Medicaid) the government pays...and if you end up making too much, you have to pay them back.
This was gameable in the early 2010's if one had both tax-deferred and after-tax assets to juggle. I retired from my career at 57 yo and by limiting taxable income by drawing down after-tax money to live and utilizing tax-exempt investments to limit ACA-classified income, my income was near zero. I then took the appropriately-sized IRA distribution to have enough ACA income to still qualify for the maximum tax credit. This level of income was just slightly higher than that covered by the standard deduction and exemptions, so I didn't pay much income tax on the IRA distribution either. I definitely lost some investment yield, but was easily offset by the effective $18 to 24K I saved in health insurance premiums per year. It's the one time in my life I took a government benefit I didn't really deserve or need, but it was legal.
They were incentivized to deny claims before, the whole reason why it was included in the ACA to begin with. If you're primary fiduciary responsibility is to your share holders, why would you wouldn't you want to find out ways to deny claims?
Back pain can be excruciatingly painful, there's no reason to minimize whatever he had. Seems like a lot of the current news cycle is just speculation about his reasons though.
I'm aware of how excruciatingly painful back pain can be. I've had lower back pain since I was 13 and ran backwards into a cement wall while playing racquetball. Haven't been able to sleep on my stomach since then. I have a disc that sometimes bulges and within the last year I started getting sciatica. There's a pinched nerve in my right shoulder that acts up sometimes and the inflammation runs up the side of my head.. Not long ago, when I rolled over to my left in bed the sciatica hurt and if I rolled over to the right my neck and head hurt. As an adult I've had a head on bicycle collision that damaged both my upper and lower back and once fell 30 feet into a river bed (w/ my 10 year old daughter) and when my head hit the log at the bottom of the ravine, it snapped my neck back farther than the factory specifications intended.
Some nights when I got to bed I literally laugh about the number of things that hurt getting into bed.
Pain is very hard to measure. I'm sure if they could measure back pain, insurance companies would deny even more claims.
Insurance companies are always going to be incentivized to deny claims. Does government solve this? Medicare/Medicaid (and of course the VA) all deny claims. Non-profit? They deny claims. Employer ran insurance? They deny claims.
What is a reasonable amount of claim denials? ( This is like asking "What is the fair share of taxes that billionaires should pay")
Nice work on the fitness front! It's definitely important for the long game. I'm 55, and a slightly better diet this year knocked off fifteen pounds of desk weight... which then paid huge dividends on the mountain bike, which THEN (combined with some iron) led to some of my best early-season skiing in years. (Now my son doesn't have to wait quite as long in both pursuits.) This bad writing is all to say that mind, body, and soul are a solid personal trinity, IMHO.
I’m more of a Honda Crossroad man myself. Who could resist the only V8 ever to wear the Honda badge? (Even if it is technically a Buick motor)
The Rover V8 (_nee_ Buick)
“Anyone who has ever felt himself to be surrounded by earnest but boorish idiots…”
Uh, oh.
in which the author expresses contempt for his audience
AS LONG AS I GET PAID
WHAT WONT YOU DO FOR MONEY
Videos.
We covered this on Wednesday!
That was me in high school, but in truth, I was the boorish idot.
Oh WHY does it take so long to figure these things out?!
(Insert here a hyperlink to Sinatra singing “That’s Life…”)
I’m not surrounded by boorish idiots, but lethargic working teams.
Part of it is that probably 2/3 of the team is speaking in their non-native language and having to process everything through that barrier, but I’m continually frustrated by the pace of discussion and decision-making in work meetings. It feels like I’m swimming in molasses at times.
Any time you can take a fifth of the weight off, your body will be happier, your joints and cardiovascular will be happier.
I am surprised that there isn’t more vigilante type of violence visiting the uber well to do who work in healthcare, not that I condone it, but a single illness can wipe out an American family’s life savings and make them homeless, that is insane.
My hot take is, I think, the same as Kennedy’s. The question is not why is healthcare so expensive but why we need so much of it.
Er, maybe because the high fructose corn syrup lobby is so powerful …..
Yes. And note that the recent (test?) volley was around artificial dyes in sugary cereals and not the sugary cereals themselves.
Americans' diets are mostly terrible--and the high fructose corn syrup is only a piece of the problem. So much of what the average American eats is artificial, lacking needed nutrients, and filled with sugar or simple carbs--which are sugar--and chemical compounds used for flavoring.
Thanks to the example my mother gave us while growing up, under which we chafed a bit--my siblings and I all developed healthy diets in adulthood. I expunged the remaining artificial stuff--of which there wasn't much--over the last decade. And in the last year or two I've increased the diversity of healthy food--multiple types of nuts, beans, whole grains, vegetables, leafy greens, fruits, berries, and I may be missing one or two categories, along with some nonfat yogurt and fish. I don't miss the stuff I don't eat anymore, not ice cream, not bacon, both of which I used to refer to as America's favorite foods, not pasta, which I loved, especially as a kid... the one thing I'd HATE to have to give up are my espresso macchiatos.
While I wasn't trying to lose weight, those recent changes were accompanied by my weight dropping from slightly over 140 to slightly over 130 (I'm 5'9", and an inch shorter than I was a decade ago). The last time I was 130 was 49 years ago, at the end of my bicycle trip from Seattle to Boston, on which I'd started out weighing 125.
I switched from cycling to running as my major form of exercise at 40, and now, 31 years later, my dog and I probably average a little over 20 miles a week.
Sounds like you are in great shape, overall. One thing you might find is that doing a minimal amount of strength training could help your resiliency. Less likely to get hurt moving a box or falling if you have enough strength to shrug it off. You're so light and eat so clean that it's really unlikely you'd put on any mass that'd take away from your running.
You're probably right about that. I'm not sure I'd be able to add any mass, though. The only time that happened was on that bicycle trip. As an adolescent I did a lot of pushups and pull-ups and I don't think that ever added to my muscle mass, although I won't swear to it.
I think both those questions are legitimate and important
Everything's a tradeoff.
The US issue with healthcare is like with higher ed: we approach it like consumers (we want what we want, where and how we want it), so the market treats us like consumers.
Go to, say, Denmark, and schedule an elective surgery on public insurance, or find a public university slot to major in an Asian language, and see how long you wait.
I'm not saying that's bad. But we like "to speak with your manager."
As for any insurance company (not just in health), I think they should essentially run like a credit union, which might be MORE expensive in some situations, but would theoretically not be because of shareholders.
There have been a few efforts to push Medicare for all, but they've gone nowhere. I think we're the only advanced nation that lacks universal healthcare. The vulnerability to being wiped out by illness certainly IS insane. And richest man in the world Elon Musk wants to take it away from us so that he can pay lower taxes.
And what’s worse is if you don’t have insurance you end up paying 3 to 10 times as much as insurance pays.
how come i've been told that if i pay by check it's less than half as much as it'd be if i put it on insurance? wish i could remember where it was doggone it--or why i was told about the option.
Probably at the pharmacy. The drug pricing is even more insane, with the “pharmacy benefit managers” between the insurance companies and pharmacies. Cash price can be lower than the insurance copay. More scams.
https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/holiday-ort-1-substackerterrorist/comment/82610396
I had BCBS through a government job. I saw a specialist at a different hospital system in late summer 2020 and the clerk didn't bother to add any of my paperwork, so I got a letter saying something like "We see that you are uninsured: We can offer you a cash discount: just pay X% of the list price." The amount they offered (without any negotiation on my part) was actually slightly LOWER than the BCBS negotiated rate.
But this could still be a lot of money (no "out of pocket maximum") and there's no guarantee that the hospital WON'T try to collect the full sticker price (aka the "Sheik Rate."
The gap between what they offered and the BCBS rate reflected the fact (a) you'll actually pay it, and (b) will pay it without costing them "x" hours of paperwork.
Yes, but I was somewhat surprised to get any discount: I thought that 90% of the point of medical "insurance" was to join the cartel and get a group discount.
And even if you have insurance, you go to a hospital that is in your insurance plan, only to find out later that the doctors are separate from the hospital and are not in your plan. THAT should be illegal.
The "No Surprises Act," effective January 202, did mostly address the issue of "surprise balance billing."
https://www.cms.gov/nosurprises/Ending-Surprise-Medical-Bills
Largely by creating an arbitration system that the government tried to heavily rig on behalf of the payers, who responded by kicking docs out of network left and right...so it became less of a surprise that the docs were out of network. :/
https://affordablecareactlitigation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tma-summary-judgment-opinion-2-23.pdf
My back also hurts occasionally, however instead of shooting up BCBS IL, I’ll be* whacking the CEOs of Culver’s, Portillo’s, my local butcher, and if I’m honest, the ice cream shop down the block, for making me make myself so porcine.
*I will not be
I suffered from having Gibson’s Italia in my lobby, Small Cheval across the street, and Au Cheval nearby while residing in Chicago.
"I'm surrounded by _deux chevaux_ but nowhere near France or Piccadilly Circus."
Try Romanian Sausage in Rogers Park. I get their pickled beef tongue whenever I'm in Chicago.
I back the Blue, so I'm afraid I'll have to counter you at the Culver's.
"he couldn’t even have sex with all the cute girls who liked him"
complaining your beverage isnt sufficiently chilled while others die of thirst
" I eat nothing “Chomps”, the 100-calorie, no-sugar beef stick, and mozzarella cheese"
sounds like gentrified pemmican
"giving Andrew-Tate-ish advice to all ACFers under the age of 30"
theres like five of us now so remember to tren hard eat clen anavar give up
while the new honda pilot thing might be better than the bronco will it fall into the same problem of the ridgeline of being what people actually need but not want
also what does the cia have to do with this
"...so remember to tren hard eat clen anavar give up"
I see what you did there. magical one.
I had only ever heard "train hard, tren harder"
Congrats on getting your weight down, its better for your joints as well as heart, etc. But the 90 mins a day routine must be getting old. Find some ways to mix it up with other activities. And being about 10 years older than you, keeping in shape and the weight off is more of a bitch every passing year.
Thanks for the book review; will have to look that one up.
much like with racecars less weight is preferred
become the superleggera
I think the mortality vs weight curve is U-shaped. Muscle mass helps with insulin sensitivity and improves general utility. Mr. Burns and Janne Holmén are not aspirational physiques.
https://thehappybody.com/blog/enduring-vs-charging/19th-european-athletics-championships-day-7/
well yeah
you want to be athletic not a labour camp escapee
For the elderly especially, a little extra weight provides resiliency when the inevitable hospital stay ensues.
The “flotilla of turbo fours” is a big reason why I bought my wife the last V6 Camry.
I travel for work, and “Safe Girl” needs a reliable, appliance vehicle with local dealer support because I am not around to help M-F.
She likes sedans and when a perfect, 30,000 mile 2018 XLE V6 showed up at my local dealer a couple years ago, I snatched it.
And now, here we are, all Camrys are 4 cylinder hybrids, Accords all have CVTs, and Nissans and Hyundai/Kias are just not something I want in my driveway.
So glad I bought it when I did.
Wife loves it.
I’m with you, the V6 Honda trucklets with traditional automatic transmissions seem to be the sweet spot for plebes like us.
I’d take a new Ridgeline over the Accord.
Well said, sir.
As the owner of 2 turbo Saabs and a turbo diesel: I AGREE!
"all Camrys are 4 cylinder hybrids, Accords all have CVTs, and Nissans and Hyundai/Kias are just not something I want in my driveway"
And Dolores O'Riordian has been dead for almost 7 years.
I guess I need to wake up and smell the coffee of the faithful departed and bury the hatchet because there is no need to argue, everyone else is doing it, why can’t we?
I guess everything is coming up roses? Or am I thinking of something else in the end?
Honda’s implementation of the ZF transmission blows. We have the 9 speed in our Odyssey and it sucks compared to the 6 speed traditional auto in our cx-5.
Wow. Interesting. I have no experience with it.
It always hunting around for gears and slow to respond. I hear the 10 speed ZF Honda implementation is just as bad. It’s probably all due to programming it for emissions and fuel economy.
Ditto the 6 speed autobox in the J35 accords, which is never in the right gear and cannot leave a hill without a lurch.
Everything sucks today. The last good car was built in 2004.
My best friend has an Accord with a CVT (which replaced an Accord with a stick that got smashed while parked). And as much as I prefer a stick--which I have in my '08 Civic--his Accord is a really nice car.
I can’t say I’m well acquainted with them, but I haven’t really heard anything bad about Honda’s CVT…
And to the OP’s point, those four cylinder Toyota hybrids with the eCVT is one of the most reliable powertrains really ever made. They go to hundreds of thousands of miles without much fuss.
1. Terrorism charges are ludicrous. If know he wrote messages on his shell casings, but are we saying those designed to strike fear i to the hearts of healthcare executives nationwide? Is THAT who was getting terrorized?
2. That said. I can see why a manhunt was more warranted. It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong, it was clearly a targeted assassination and one could expect it might not be the last…
3. As someone who shaved down a comparable percentage of body weight recently, my congratulations on your hard work. It’s feels great I am sure. Well done.
4. I hope you are 100% accurate with your Passport prediction.
The last time I saw you i didn't think there was any weight for you to lose!
“Ford Bronco Sport to be as successful as it’s been — 127k units in the past year! — and all of that has to be laid at the doorstep of the ultra-butch styling”
surely you didn’t mean to add the “Sport” to Ford Bronco because the Sport looks a lot less ultra butch and a lot more ultra-bitch.
At any rate, I’ve often said that the problem with Honda is that they figure out what the average person absolutely needs, and gives you 98-102% of exactly that. Not more. Whereas many European and American automakers say “there’s no fucking way you need triple lockers or a 179mph top speed or an 18k towing capacity, but here it is anyways, rock on you crazy bastard.” I’m sure the Passport is lovely, but it’s entirely too left brained for my taste and dollars.
"I’ve often said that the problem with Honda is that they figure out what the average person absolutely needs, and gives you 98-102% of exactly that. Not more."
This is a very wise observation, and under Soichiro's leadership when CAFE targets were ambitious and fuel prices were high, a generous dollop of ACBC's "add lightness" resulted in some well-made and fun Civics and Accords (the wishbone suspensions fall into the the "you crazy bastard" department). But it definitely does not work for Canyonero intenders.
That is an interesting take.
And they’ve gone very far in that direction by doing such things as dropping a higher-output option in the Accord which had been available for literally DECADES!
The main idea was all S2kChris!
I meant the Sport. Look at it next to a Santa Fe and a RAV4A for context, rather than next to an LM002 and a Humvee!
It’s a good looking little thing. In typical Ford fashion, it’s a true piece of garbage but at least it is good looking garbage. The ones with a locker and low range are shockingly competent off road too, given that it’s little more than a final gen Focus with a lift kit.
I like the ones with the Seventies retro fade graphics quite a bit. Could be totally content with it as a daily driver.
I appreciate Ford for doing fun color/design things. The new California Special mustang has these blue highlights everywhere that I don’t know actually work very well, but are quite distinctive.
Id take my Bronco Sport as a Robins Egg Blue Heritage Edition, with the blue checkered cloth interior. Can’t get enough of the white wheels on them.
Those look FANTASTIC. Better than the "real" Bronco in that scheme.
i tried building a california special mustang on fords website and for some unexplainable reason you cant get that package with blue painted calipers despite being the exact same caliper as standard
My wife liked it, and then we saw the flaming hot garbage of an interior next to our CX5.
Oh, and I thought the “In the desert … no one remembers your name, for there ain’t no one for to give you no name…”
My first thought exactly.
i knew i wasnt the only one
I just looked and now know I heard those lyrics slightly wrong my whole life…
If it makes you feel any better, my wife confided in me that she thought the lyrics were, "I've been through the desert on a horse with no legs."
That's a fun one to have AI try to generate an image of.
Terrible song that was played incessantly on the radio back then. Today they'd call that band Temu CS&N.
Chestnut Mare by Roger McGuinn also annoys me. Unlike the pablum mentioned above it's a good song, but it just got overplayed back when we had fewer choices to program our music.
Given the content of today's post, it seems appropriate to note that Mr. McGuinn seems to be aging well.
Back in the AOL days I actually was able to correspond with Roger McGuinn and send him a baseball cap that I embroidered with a Rickenbacker guitar. He was very gracious. Seemed to be serious about his religious faith, as well.
I was telling a friend the other day that when we were kids watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the Beatles were young adults. Now that we're old, they're in their 80s if they're still around.
I saw Bob Dylan play about this time last year in Huntington, WV. He's 81 now I think. His voice was in better shape than I expected and he certainly gave a spirited performance (he sat at the piano for most of the show).
I just saw that Rickey Henderson, the premier base stealer in baseball history, just died at 65.
Kiss your kids tonight.
I watched Rickey hit a leadoff home run against Cleveland in the old concrete carousel.
I hate AI. I'm trying to figure out where and when that happened and so far I've been told that the "Concrete Carousel" is the Olympic stadium in LA, Candlestick Park, or the old stadium in Cleveland.
One app told me that Henderson hit a leadoff homerun against Cleveland on Aug. 21, 1983, but the records show that Cleveland played Seattle that day when Henderson was playing for Oakland.
Candlestick Park, the old stadium in Cleveland, and the Oakland Athletics are, like the late, great Mr. Henderson, no longer here.
Perhaps it's not intended for you: the world is filled with stupid people; for them the AI might actually help even when it is wrong 50% of the time.
"Six months ago, however, my tailor gave me the quite unwelcome news that I was now officially “portly”,"
Welcome to the club, husky boy.
Cue Richard Lewis' "Husky" routine.
I was schlepped by my mother to every boy's clothing store in southeastern Michigan to try every husky, short, and portly boys' suit available therein for my upcoming Bar Mitzvah, to no avail. I'm built a little like a chimp, I have a long trunk and short, stubby legs, with enough curve in my spine to give me a fat ass. Finally, about two weeks before the event, my dad took me to the men's department at the downtown Hudson's store. A very professional salesman found me a dark grey, pinstriped, double breasted suit that not only fit well with basic alterations, I thought it looked a little bit gangster.
As far as I know, no Purple Gang members went to my family's synagogue. I did hear stories, though, about them showing up to Shaarey Tzedek on the High Holidays, packing heat. My Aunt Jackie's first husband did show up to my Bar Mitzvah wearing a Sherlock Holmes looking deer stalker outfit, but this was the late '60s after all.
As a fellow chimp with long torso and tiny legs, LL Bean is your friend, almost everything is available in Tall.
Finally found the perfect high school reunion suit!
https://superpimp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IMG_9993-580x580.jpg
Sign me up!
I don't think I could ever pull it off, but I've always kinda liked the look of zoot suits.
Head-to-toe gold lame, complete with matching ankle-length duster and chrome feather boa?
This must be how they dress in Heaven.
The son of a former neighbor who is dear to me was celebrating becoming a Bar Mitzvah at the minyan of a local secondary yeshiva. Very strictly orthodox, all the men and boys were in black suits with black hats and white shirts. It was July so I was wearing one of my summer suits, either a light blue linen or my grey seersucker, with a straw hat and white New Balance shoes. Every kid in the room and plenty of the adults were gawking at me.
I'm thinking more like Dan Ackroyd in Doctor Detroit:
https://youtu.be/P4fj-1Y81vo?t=61
I bet I could live nicely for a year on the cocaine budget for that film.
And that's just the budget line for James Brown and his band. Pun not intended.
My millennial niece grew up in Augusta, GA when JB was hard into his crack addiction and making news. When she was visiting she and I had an errand and I popped in my James Brown CD so she would know what he used to be famous for. "It has a good beat" said the 15-year old.
At least JB had enough good sense not to catch himself on fire.
What was Michael Jackson's and Richard Pryor's favorite charity?
Richard Pryor got burned by coke, and Michael Jackson got burned by Pepsi.
Oh, undoubtedly!
Beautiful!
I might part my hair that way tomorrow.
Did you wear the black shirt with a white tie?
Please say yes.
I wanted to but my father said, "No." These days I have a couple of black dress shirts that I wear with my black suit. Typically no tie. I like the look.
Ah, the downtown Hudson’s. When I was young they had an entire floor of toys before Christmas. And if my memory is correct, elevators with attendants.
Yes, elevator operators and professional salespeople. Hudson's was a special company. They sponsored the Independance Day fireworks and the Thanksgiving Day parade (Rube Weiss, who was one of Soupy Sales' costars, was Santa), and also displayed what was the world's largest U.S. flag on the side of the building for the 4th of July.
I recently saw a real estate listing for a very expensive home that had an elevator that used brass doors salvaged from the Hudson's store.
Ever go to one of Hudson's warehouse sales?
The top floor of the downtown Hudson's was used for special displays like the Christmas thing, which I might have attended once or twice.
I don’t recall going to any warehouse sales.
We mostly went to the Hudson’s at Northland mall; only recall going downtown a few times.
It was a sad day when Hudson’s got bought (Target as I recall).
Northland opened the year I was born, about two miles from my house near where Outer Drive hits Vassar. When I was in high school, it was a popular hang out for kids. When I go downtown, on my way to the Lodge I drive by the site, which is being redeveloped as joint retail/residential.
If you want to see the Marshall Fredericks Boy & Bear sculpture that was at Northland it's now in the atrium of the Southfield public library.
Stephen Crane not Joseph Conrad, and Saint Luigi had Anthem/BCBS again.
Afaik not again
Why did I write Joseph Conrad! There's literally a copy of The Black Riders on my desk next to me.
I genuinely hope I'm wrong but doesn't the new Passport have the new DOHC V6? In the Pilot it uses cam phasing for vvt but no more VTEC. I Found a 2015 Accord Coupe V6 with 28k miles that I got for $12.5K because the guy needed the money. After a cold air intake that J35 sounds so damn good I'm having a hard time ever saying goodbye.
Youre not wrong and that's THREE errors on this article. That will teach me to publish first drafts.
Welcome to the club!
That's a solid deal for your accord, kudos--let us know how it goes.
"Terrorism." Our nation is a big fat joke. I expect more of this.
Kudos on the weight loss. I would suggest 5x5 Stronglifts, but it favors squats and your erector set knee won't like it. I loathe machine based cardio. PX90 and T25 are tolerable.
That Honda reminds me of the late 80's Pathfinders. They were freakin' everywhere.
In a previous *current year* terrorism was defined as taking school boards to task in public.