Friday Nite Check In

Not sure who or what got into this patch of Amanita Mascaria..., I assure you it was not me.

Nobody has touched these..., yet.

The weather has been rainy and windy and we had about a five hour power outage Thursday evening..., so I didn't have much to do..., so I came up with this little rant...,

I have written a bit about “healthcare” and “healthcare insurance” in the past and that seems to be what the major problem is regarding the “government shutdown”.  It is hard to determine just exactly what the issue is…, it depends on if a Democrat or a Republican is telling their side of the story…, and there is even disagreement within members of the same party.  As I understand it, the main issue is the expiration of the extra government subsidies that were enacted as a temporary measure to help folks meet the Obamacare (also known as the Affordable Care Act) insurance premiums during the COVID-19 lockdowns that prevented non-essential workers from getting a paycheck.

That being said…, the first thing I would like to point out is that the Affordable Care Act is a complete misnomer.  It is really the Unaffordable Care Act…, as the insurance premiums are already massively subsidized because “healthcare insurance” had become so extremely expensive that many folks had been forced to drop their “coverage” due to the expense of the “insurance”.  And since insurance companies can’t stay in business without paying customers…, many would soon be going broke if something wasn’t done.  Instead of enacting a Medicare for all type plan…, we got a mandatory Obamacare plan and everyone was required to have some form of “healthcare insurance”…, either private or employer sponsored plans…, or Obamacare…, which was supposed to be Affordable Cafe.

It was never affordable for many people from the start…, so low income folks were subsidized so that maybe they could afford a plan so they wouldn’t be monetarily penalized for lacking “healthcare  insurance”.  Obama and the Democrats sold this as “helping out” low income folks…, but in reality it was a give away to the insurance companies to keep them solvent.  That became obvious after the Republicans tried about 50 times to repeal the Unaffordable Care Act while the Democrats held sway in the Congress…, but as soon as the Republicans held sway a few years later they kept the plan in place instead of repealing it like they insisted on doing when they didn’t have the power to do so.

We have basically the same little game going on with this government shutdown over the expiring temporary extra subsidies.  The Democrats say they are trying to help out folks because the insurance premiums are too high…, but they are really trying to make sure the insurance companies will get paid the sky high premiums with taxpayer money.  The Republicans aren’t worried about the insurance companies not getting paid…, due to the Unaffordable Care Act everyone is going to have to buy the plans or be monetarily penalized for not doing so.  The fact is…, it is not so much the expiration of the subsidies that is raising the cost of the premiums…, as it is the rising cost of medical care itself.  

Yeah…, the Unaffordable Care Act was a sham scam from the start…, and the medical healthcare industry is in dire need of a major overhaul…, and dissolving the medical healthcare insurance companies is just a basic first step in that process.  Yes…, everyone should be entitled to healthcare…, nearly every modern industrialized nation provides it for its citizens…, with the sole exception of the United States of America.  Single payer healthcare (ie,  Medicare) for all is just the first step in the healthcare overhaul…, but a very important one.

If you want to know the details of the predicament we are in…, here is a link you should check out.

https://www.crfb.org/blogs/understanding-aca-subsidy-discussion

“A couple of quick quotes, “ACA subsidies are primarily paid directly to insurers…”  My question is why are we tax payers giving money to insurance companies so they can skim huge profits before paying the medical bills?  Wouldn’t it make far more sense to pay the medical bills directly and cut out the insurance company profits?

Another quote, “The gross federal cost of these subsidies and related spending grew from $18 billion in 2014…, to $50 billion in 2018, $53 billion in 2020, $92 billion in 2023, and an estimated $138 billion in 2025.”  Anybody but me see a problem here?

The chart below goes a long way toward explaining what’s going on here.

Portion of Premiums Paid by Enrollees and the Federal Government, for an Illustrative Family of Four with a 2026 Premium of $2,000 per Month

	Original Subsidies			Enhanced Subsidies
Income Level	Beneficiary Premium	Government Subsidy		Beneficiary Premium	Government Subsidy
150% of FPL	$168 (8%)	$1,832 (92%)		$0 (0%)	$2,000 (100%)
250% of FPL	$565 (28%)	$1,435 (72%)		$268 (13%)	$1,732 (87%)
350% of FPL	$933 (47%)	$1,067 (53%)		$680 (34%)	$1,320 (66%)
450% of FPL	$2,000 (100%)	$0 (0%)		$849 (42%)	$1,151 (58%)
550% of FPL	$2,000 (100%)	$0 (0%)		$1,253 (63%)	$747 (37%)
650% of FPL	$2,000 (100%)	$0 (0%)		$1,480 (74%)	$520 (26%)

Source: CRFB estimates.

A little explanation…, FPL is Federal Poverty Level…, projected to be $33,740 of Gross Income.  So for folks who were eligible for the original subsides, those under 150% ($50,610) would have to return to paying $168 premium if the enhanced subsides expire.  Those under 250% ($84,350) would lose a $297 enhanced subside.  Those in the 350% ($118,900) would lose $253 enhanced subside.  

The last three categories weren’t eligible for subsidies prior to the enhanced subsides…, and it appears to me that the enhanced subsides in the bunch was more of a gift to the insurance companies to gain more customers than it was to help folks with between $151,830 and $219,310 incomes.

Yes…, the enhanced subsides should expire as planned…, and an overhaul of medical industry should be a major priority.  I repeat what I said above..., Yes…, everyone should be entitled to healthcare…, nearly every modern industrialized nation provides it for its citizens…, with the sole exception of the United States of America.  Single payer healthcare (ie,  Medicare) for all is just the first step in the healthcare overhaul…, but a very important one. 

Friday Nite Check In

Well..., Here's a better picture of Charlie Horse and the Deer..., before he noticed them.  He later wandered over there and they took off.  

We have been getting lots of rain lately and it is good for the mushrooms..., and I was hoping that it drowned the spiders...,but the other day I was stopped cold at The Garden Gate.  One of those bastards had stretched a web across the gate and was sitting there in the middle of the web waiting for me with a smirk on his face..., until he met up with the shovel and the spatula 😁

Today we are getting a deluge..., and an inch of rain at 3:30 pm.  The farrier arrived at 2:30 and we got Charley Horse's hooves trimmed up..., under cover of The GarPort..., and Charley thought the purpose was for him to run around and make divots for me to replace in the driving rain. 

I suppose we will have a power outage about the time the World Series starts this evening..., I'll be holding my breath..., but that hasn't helped the Dodgers when I tried it during the three games they have lost already 😢

Oh..., and Trick or Treat..., you guess if the Friday Nite Music Video is a Trick or Treat...,

Friday Nite Check In

 Well..., yesterday afternoon turned off pretty nice..., at least it wasn't raining anyway.  While I was cleaning up horse manure I found that the crab apple tree had shed a large amount of those nickel and dime size apples..., so I raked them up with with the leaves so Charley Horse wouldn't over indulge himself on them.  Later..., as the daylight was fading I see a couple of deer out there looking for the ones I missed..., and Charley saw the deer too.  I guess the zoom function on the camera doesn't work in the motion picture mode..., you have to look pretty close to see the deer..., and the one deer made a nice jump over the fence dividing the North and South 40's when a car came up the driveway and spooked the deer..., and Charley.  Charley finally gave up trying to run the deer off..., maybe he isn't as fond of those little apples as I thought.

I guess that there won't be any problem deciding which team to root for in the World Series..., since the Mariners didn't make the cut..., the Dodgers are my team now.  I was a little worried this morning with the wind and rain..., thinking that we might have a power outage.  Yeah..., a few 30+ mph wind gusts and 1.8 inches of rain before noon today.  It quieted down considerably this afternoon and I didn't have to suit up in the rain gear to get the chores done..., and the one deer that came back today left a lot of those little apples on the ground for me to pick up.  Now I am ready to kick back with some cold beer and watch the ballgame.

Friday Nite Check In (on Saturday morning)

Yeah..., the baseball games on Friday afternoon and evening got in the way of the FNCI..., again.  I am happy to report that the Seattle Mariners broke out of their two game, shameful slump and won game five of their series to take a 3-2 lead back to Toronto..., needing to win one of the two remaining games to advance to the World Series.  If that transpires as I hope..., they will be meeting the Los Angeles Dodgers..., who won their fourth game in a row to move on to the Big Show.

I celebrated by conjuring up Sausage, Biscuits, Gravy and Fried Eggs for supper after the games concluded. OK..., I didn't really make biscuits..., I toasted a couple bread heels from 100% whole wheat bread and soaked them up good with left over chicken gravy from the other night.  Frying the eggs in the Jimmy Dean sausage grease doesn't make for the best looking eggs..., but they are sure tasty.  And I don't think them chickens make eggs like they used too..., they are way too touchy and break very easily.

I will be facing a big dilemma if the Mariners and the Dodgers do meet up in the World Series. The Mariners have been my "home team" since I moved to Forks, WA back in 1987..., but the Dodgers were my favorite team during my teens and remained so until the Mariners took over the top slot. I read several of John R. Tunis books about his fictional Dodger teams growing up..., and remember savoring the few televised games of the rivalry between the Dodgers and the Yankees when they would meet up in the World Series. It is surely a different world today when you can still view most games for a free..., but I am afraid that they will soon only be available for a fee. Anyway..., I guess I will be rooting for the team that is behind..., hoping to see exciting games..., but the Dodgers have had many glory days to remember..., but the Mariners have never been to the World Series..., let alone won one..., so I am leaning their way I guess.

Other than that..., the weather has been really nice..., no Monsoon Rains just yet..., but I have the feeling that they are not far off..., and we actually had a wee bit of frost one morning this week. I am hoping that I have weed eatted the driveway for the last time this year and I am having no trouble finding leaves to rake and mix with the horse manure for compost for The Garden..., and since I have the day off..., from baseball..., I probably should get to work catching up on the chores that have been neglected !!!

 

Friday Nite Check In (on Saturday..., yet again)

 Well..., yet again your unreliable correspondent has missed his Friday Nite Deadline..., due to a five hour baseball game on Friday evening.  I thought I would have time after the game to slip in the Friday Night Check In after the game that started a 5 pm..., but I didn't consider that the game could remain tied up for over two extra hours and last 15 innings. A heck of a game..., and a great outcome for us Seattle Mariners fans.

A beautiful morning for Spider Hunting.

The past week was a fairly nice one..., weather wise..., but a bad one for the Spiders. I had been noticing a lot of cob webs and spiders while out cleaning up the Charley Horse manure..., and I didn't need my glasses to notice a half a dozen little brown spiders hanging down on the outside of my windows..., and my garden rake was a useful tool to knock them down..., but when I went out with my glasses on early this week..., the alarm bells went off..., and I decided to eliminate "a few" of them. I thought about using a broom because of the long handle that would keep me a safe distance away..., but I wasn't sure it would squish the bastards.

Just an "itsy bitsy" spider..., yeah right :(  

So I had to settle for an old metal spatula to dispatch the ones on the walls of The Barn, The Well House, The Gar-Port and The Front Porch. I tried to take pictures to show how many there were..., but you can't really see them in the pictures..., but you cans see some of the squish marks that were left after my full frontal assault. After the first day the score was Scott R. 57..., Spiders 0. The next day as I was changing into my work pants in The Office/Library/Computer/Music Room I had to give the Spiders one point..., when one scurried out of those pants and I had to dispatch him with nothing but a socked foot. I am still a little traumatized over that one. And I am careful to keep my metal spatula handy at all times now.

A few squish marks here.

A close up for you.

Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while may remember a story about snakes in "The Garden" story..., and I have similar feeling about spiders as well..., so here is your Friday Nite Music Video (on Saturday) from Jim Stafford...,

Friday Nite Check In

I thought for sure that our Monsoon Season had started a couple days early this year.  It usually waits until the month of October is at least underway..., sometimes early October and sometimes a little later..., but we got a couple inches of rain on the 29th of September and another inch on the 30th.  The first couple days of October we got over a half inch of rain each day..., on the 1st the intermittent downpours were enough to keep me cozied up inside and watching the wild card baseball games instead of braving the wild weather outside and cleaning up the horse manure.  On the 2nd I thought I could outsmart the downpours and sneak in some clean up..., I'm not so smart..., and the radar picture on the Internet isn't exactly exact..., I got caught out in the Southeast 40 under the apple tree in one of those cow pissing on a flat rock downpours.  And an apple tree may provide you a little comfort in your mind..., but your wool shirt tells you a little different story.  After the worst of the downpour subsided I curtailed the clean up..., and got into some dry clothes..., and more baseball.

Today I got things spruced up and the weather forecast is telling me that the Monsoon Season hasn't started yet..., and this last week has just been a little wake up call to let us know what is on it's way.  Maybe we will get a bit of Indian Summer yet this year..., the forecast up above says we could get close to 70 degree temperatures on Monday and Tuesday with overnight temps down in the 40's..., we have only experienced a hand full of those overnight lows the last few months.  And as crazy as this weather is..., something even crazier is going on..., here it is October..., and the Seattle Mariners are still playing baseball !!!

So..., here is your Friday Nite Music Video...,

Friday Nite Check In

Well..., our guests have departed..., and it is looking like they took the nice sunny summer weather with them..., though they did leave a couple of nice ones behind..., so they could make a clean and lengthy getaway 😀  But The Weather Channel shows nothing but rain for the next ten days..., not quite the Monsoons just yet..., but certainly not sunny summer weather.

Charley Horse was the only one happy to see them gone..., he was shunted off to The Barnyard Pasture so the driveway gate could be left open.  I swear that Logan shed a tear or two when Baja barked goodbye.

 Dave and Jenelle were the best of guests..., they never interfered with my chores..., Dave is shooting the video as Jenelle is coming out of the motor home..., and I am coming out of The Barnyard with the wheel barrow after depositing the horse manure and leaves on the compost pile in The Garden..., and Charlie did insist on checking things out before returning to exile.  I also managed to climb the ladder and scrape all the apples that I could reach with the rake in hopes that I could deter Charlie from engaging in his penchant for over indulgence in apple gobbling when he can get to them before I can clean them up after a wind storm.

Trying to stay ahead of Charley Horse

I also managed to get the rest of Potatoes plucked..., and while there weren't any giant Fingerlings..., there were enough seed quality ones.  The good thing about them is all the eyes that they have to develop sprouts from each spud.  The Yukons tend to just sprout from one end..., so you need lots of seed potatoes from them.

About half this batch will be saved for seed potatoes.

Probably half this batch too.

So..., I guess we are about as ready as we can be for the end of summer..., and the wet weather might serve as a good excuse to stay inside and watch The Mariners in there first playoffs in some twenty years..., and The Seahawks are looking like they could be a contender this year as well..., and I better move on and not forget to offer up a Friday Nite Music Video..., like I did last week 😢  This one from James McMurtry off his new Black Dog and Wandering Boy album deals with getting old..., something I am quite familiar with..., here's "South Texas Lawman"...,

"South Texas Lawman"

South Texas lawman, he brings 'em back alive
He hunts quail from horseback and he cheats on both his wives
One in Rio Bravo, one in Raymondville
He's never been to Houston, and he doubts he ever will

South Texas lawman, old time in his ways
He wore the cinco peso, and it dogged him through his days
The hours were long and lonesome, the paperwork's a bitch
His years are empty bottles now, tossed off in the ditch

I used to be young
I used to understand
I used to be strong as any man
I used to be bold
Nobody bothered me
And I can't stand getting old, it don't fit me
It don't fit me

South Texas lawman, the work just ain't the same
Used to you could clock 'em good if they called you any names
Now he's up on charges for showin' 'em who's the boss
He reckons after Vietnam we must've all gone soft

I used to be young
I used to understand
I used to be strong as any man

South Texas lawman, sittin' on the beach
South of Port Aransas, alone and out of reach
Cellphone in the pickup, gun-belt in the sand
Lookin' past the breakers, half pint in his hand

Kayak through the breakers, to brave the silent sea
Cinderblock and a ski-rope coiled beneath his knees
Cellphone in the pickup, gun-belt in the sand
Naked in the moonlight, sidearm in his hand
Out past the second sand bar and on out towards the rigs
There's things out deep you seldom see
Some of them get mighty big

I used to be young
I used to understand
I used to be strong as any man
I used to be tough
Nobody bothered me
Now I've had about enough, this don't suit me
It don't suit me

I used to be bold
Nobody bothered me
And I can't stand getting old, it don't fit me
It don't fit me