An Election Day

Another election day! We survived to this one.

People who don't vote in primary elections drive me insane. Now, I'm not talking about people who are unable to do so, but people who simply don't. Just like "eh, I don't care." Really? You sure? That's the kind of attitude that got us into the dismal political situation are are in.

I know, I know - primaries are boring! The candidates are people you generally fundamentally agree with. It's why you're all in the same political party! We don't have a lot of open primaries running around, so you are voting for people you like. But they are insanely important. This is the spot where we choose who runs for the office itself. Primaries are part of how Orange 45 happened. We gotta start shutting this shit down.

Primary elections are the foundation for the other elections. This is where things get started. You can start learning about the candidates way before November. A lack of education about who we are voting for can't be excused with all the resources we have available.

If you didn't vote yet, Planned Parenthood has an excellent 2017 Primary Voter's Guide. I found it helpful as a starting place for the court races. No idea who most of those people are. I only knew who I wasn't going to vote for because someone I really really really really really hate was on his campaign flyers that came in the mail. Made that decision easy!

You don't want to be starting from scratch trying to figure out who to vote for in November. It'll probably be easy for larger elections like Mayor and Councilman (I'm def Team Peduto and Team Gilman). For those court elections, you can vote for multiple people. Nothing makes me feel quite as dumb as standing in front of a machine wishing I had bothered to take 10 minutes to look someone up. Start now.

I was number 105 at my polling place. I went right around 5. I'm hoping there will be some kind of crazy rush going on right about now and those numbers will go up! With how many people I have seen there in Presidential years, it's a damn shame that more people don't vote.

Polls close at 8:00. Let's make the future better.

Is Being Alive a Pre-Existing Condition?

Unless you live under a rock, you have heard about the House narrowly passing the "Repeal and Replace" law.


My area is employee benefits. Basically, lines that cover you. Health, dental, vision, life, etc, etc, etc. I know what the hell I'm talking about with benefits insurance!

The Repeal and Replace is a shitshow. I'm not going to get into the individual mandate. The subsidies. Medicaid. Not right now. I'm sure as the law moves to the Senate, there will be entirely new and scary things to talk about that with those. For now, I want to talk about pre-existing conditions.

Warning - this is going to be boring for a few sentences. Short version - pre-ACA, plans were medically underwritten. This means that when your company said "Hey! We want to try to change carriers" you would have to fill out a medical questionnaire. It's a detailed medical history on you and any of your dependents who would want to be covered. It asks about surgeries, medications, hospitalizations, height/weight, and pretty much anything else you can think of. If you wanted to be on the company plan, you filled out the form. Don't want to? Too bad. Not an option.

The underwriters would rate based on the forms. You have a company with a lot of women of child bearing age? Rates are going up! You have people with chronic conditions and medications? Rates are going up! You have someone who needs an organ transplant? You better hope they die because those rates are going to skyrocket!

Carriers could refuse to cover medications and treatments because they were a pre-existing condition. We're not always talking things like Hepatitis or HIV or cancer (although, can you imagine having one of those and not being able to get insurance because you have the diagnosis?). Things like depression, epilepsy, diabetes, panic disorders, and tooth disease could make you ineligible. I talked about it already - the scene in Saw VI.

Let's use me as an example. I've had root scaling and planing done, and I'm on a maintenance mental health medication.

Root scaling and planing is a non-surgical periodontal treatment. Short version - I was lazy as hell at brushing and flossing so the seal between my gums and teeth didn't exactly work. It looks super awful and painful if you Google it (which I did do because I'm a moron), but it really helped. My teeth felt amazing after! I've also tried not to get myself back in that same place. It could be used to deny treatment to me.

I'm on a drug whose on-label use is for epileptic children. It's one of those general anxiety diagnoses. (Note: the ACA made mental health and substance abuse treatments "essential health benefits" so more people were able to access the treatment they need.) It could be used against me. That medication would show up on an MQ. If I lie on the MQ? If I just forget about it because who can remember everything like that? I'm getting the Saw VI treatment. Like there isn't enough stigma about mental health.

Educating ourselves and each other is the only way to make it through this alive. Not even joking about the alive part because losing health care can and will kill people. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to make sure America doesn't go directly to hell. We seem to be taking the scenic route.