Recently I have had the unfortunate job of looking at Health Insurance plans for the company I work for. We currently are covered by one of the big players, and they ticked off the owner of my company. So now I have had the pleasure once again to search for (and you really do have to search) Health Insurance.
I contacted the insurance companies directly as well as utilizing a broker who gets rates from most of the large companies.
The results are sickening to say the least. (I have to be careful to not actually get sick, they may want to raise the prices higher.)
Our current insurance provider charges us around $925 per month including dental. We only have two employees on the plan, one family ($700 per month) and one single ($225 per month). The plan is a modest PPO that is a 50/50 share plan. When we go to the doctor we pay 50% of the charges up to a max of $750 per person or $1,500 per family (which we have never met). After the deductible is met the insurance covers 100% on any further charges (not including prescriptions of course). Dental is also a 50/50 share plan, no braces, no checkups, etc. I beileve we also have a max of $1000 per person per year on the dental plan.
When I asked for quotes I explained to the companies that I would like to find a policy that was similar to the plan we have now. What I actually got was anything but similar.
We received quotes from the top four Health Insurance companies that serve my area. The prices ranged from $1,065.00 per month for a PPO with a $5,000/$15,000 deductible (without dental) to $3,823.00 per month for a PPO with no deductibles (also without dental).
So currently my company pays $925 X 12 = $11,100.00 per year for our Health Insurance. The new plans without dental start at $12,780.00 per year and to to an astounding $45,876 per year.
A good rule of thumb when you are buy a house is to spend 25% of your income, now keep in mind that for most Americans this is the largest investment they will have.
According to the 2009 Census estimates ( http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html ) the average household income is $52,029 for a family of 2.5.
This would mean that for a family plan the average American getting Health Insurance through their work would spend between $798.75 to $2,827.75 per month if they have to go COBRA (like I just found out I have to). That would be between 18% and 65% of their yearly income for Health Insurance, that is outrageous!
I am not going to suggest answers to the problems with Health Insurance affordability that is what we pay the politicians for. I will encourage you though to take a look at a few of the links below, the statistics are interesting.
So, there you go sell your house and buy Health Insurance, pretty soon you may have to choose between one or the other.
http://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2010/11/15/insurance-company-profits-up-41-percent/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/HealthCare/health-insurers-post-record-profits/story?id=9818699
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/09/zirkelbach-profits/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr017.pdf
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Golden Rule, or Hey Dummy Pay Attention!
Isn't it funny how you can know something for so long before it "clicks"? I had one of those moments today, and like always it felt like I was hit in the head with a brick.
I won't go into too much detail here, but here is the synopsis. My wife is currently taking online classes, she has been doing great, but the current class is one that she is a little apprehensive about. I have been trying to be as supportive as possible, I believe I have been mostly succeeding, I am proud of her and want to be there for her. This morning I offered to take on an errand for her, in an attempt to help, and failed miserably.
As I offered to do the errand for her I was surprised to hear a bit of aggravation in her voice and her response. I have to admit that I was surprised and a little hurt by what I considered at the time unnecessary harshness. I then thought about it for a bit and decided to see if I could figure out what the problem was, and made it worse.
Then I continued to make it worse, overly explaining myself, until both of us there throughly annoyed, angry, and just plain ticked. The whole time both of us believing that we were "right" and the other one was "wrong".
So I left for work, and the further I got away from the problem (in miles) the more clearly I started to see what most likely had happened. The misunderstanding had begun by me.
I have been having a few issues at work lately that are annoying to say the least (and can be detrimental to my family if not figured out).
So here is a more accurate description of what happened. As I showered this morning I was dwelling on these problems, and the more I did the more upset I became. I get out of the shower, upset, I make the offer to help, badly, I get a response I didn't understand, and react even worse. Great job, I know.
Ever since I was a child I was told that what you put in to something is what you are going to get out of it. I get what that means, and I do understand it, what "clicked" for me was how true this actually is. I input negativity and receive it back, Duh.
Everyone makes mistakes and takes things out on people that do not deserve it. We get upset about something and with our already shortened fuse blow up at the undeserving for something unrelated. Only to have to apologize later for our bad behavior. Why?
We all can understand how it feels when we are on the receiving end of the blow up as well, and how unfair it feels. While the severity of the blow up will vary, they are always avoidable, if precautions are taken.
I was trying to be a supportive husband with the offer, but with my body language and tone of voice were not appropriate, hence the unexpected response. So how could I have acted/reacted differently?
I have a few ideas:
#1 Not dwelling on problems. Pretty simple statement, hard to implement. I will have to practice this.
#2 Proper communication. I have not been properly communicating the problems I have been dwelling on with my wife, her understanding and support always take a lot of the fear out of problems.
#3 Timing is everything. I keep hearing this and the more I do the more truth I see in this simple statement. If I had taken a few minutes to try and see the situation from her eyes I may have better understood, earlier. I also should have taken a few minutes to think about other things before approaching her, something more positive.
#4 Be aware of my body language and tone of voice. This has continued to be a problem with me, I wear my emotions openly. I have little to no poker face when it comes to my emotions, and I have had continued misunderstandings due to this shortcoming.
#5 Stop assuming I know what others are thinking or where they are coming from. While everyone does this my wife and I have become quite skilled at this unfair behavior. We both incorrectly assumed that we knew where the other person was coming from and what their motivations were.
There are numerous other things that I could list here, but I believe that these three are appropriate actions to help correct the main points of this misunderstanding.
I have, and do apologize to my wife for the troubles of this morning. I do love and respect her, and I want to do all I can to grow into a better husband and partner.
So there you have it, my duh moment. We all grow up hearing the advice of how to do things and how to treat people. Isn't it amazing though how we can still be surprised at the completeness of these truths.
Here are a few of these truths (NIV Version):
1Cr 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
1Cr 13:5 It is not rude, it is not self‑seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
1Cr 13:6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
1Cr 13:7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Mat 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
I won't go into too much detail here, but here is the synopsis. My wife is currently taking online classes, she has been doing great, but the current class is one that she is a little apprehensive about. I have been trying to be as supportive as possible, I believe I have been mostly succeeding, I am proud of her and want to be there for her. This morning I offered to take on an errand for her, in an attempt to help, and failed miserably.
As I offered to do the errand for her I was surprised to hear a bit of aggravation in her voice and her response. I have to admit that I was surprised and a little hurt by what I considered at the time unnecessary harshness. I then thought about it for a bit and decided to see if I could figure out what the problem was, and made it worse.
Then I continued to make it worse, overly explaining myself, until both of us there throughly annoyed, angry, and just plain ticked. The whole time both of us believing that we were "right" and the other one was "wrong".
So I left for work, and the further I got away from the problem (in miles) the more clearly I started to see what most likely had happened. The misunderstanding had begun by me.
I have been having a few issues at work lately that are annoying to say the least (and can be detrimental to my family if not figured out).
So here is a more accurate description of what happened. As I showered this morning I was dwelling on these problems, and the more I did the more upset I became. I get out of the shower, upset, I make the offer to help, badly, I get a response I didn't understand, and react even worse. Great job, I know.
Ever since I was a child I was told that what you put in to something is what you are going to get out of it. I get what that means, and I do understand it, what "clicked" for me was how true this actually is. I input negativity and receive it back, Duh.
Everyone makes mistakes and takes things out on people that do not deserve it. We get upset about something and with our already shortened fuse blow up at the undeserving for something unrelated. Only to have to apologize later for our bad behavior. Why?
We all can understand how it feels when we are on the receiving end of the blow up as well, and how unfair it feels. While the severity of the blow up will vary, they are always avoidable, if precautions are taken.
I was trying to be a supportive husband with the offer, but with my body language and tone of voice were not appropriate, hence the unexpected response. So how could I have acted/reacted differently?
I have a few ideas:
#1 Not dwelling on problems. Pretty simple statement, hard to implement. I will have to practice this.
#2 Proper communication. I have not been properly communicating the problems I have been dwelling on with my wife, her understanding and support always take a lot of the fear out of problems.
#3 Timing is everything. I keep hearing this and the more I do the more truth I see in this simple statement. If I had taken a few minutes to try and see the situation from her eyes I may have better understood, earlier. I also should have taken a few minutes to think about other things before approaching her, something more positive.
#4 Be aware of my body language and tone of voice. This has continued to be a problem with me, I wear my emotions openly. I have little to no poker face when it comes to my emotions, and I have had continued misunderstandings due to this shortcoming.
#5 Stop assuming I know what others are thinking or where they are coming from. While everyone does this my wife and I have become quite skilled at this unfair behavior. We both incorrectly assumed that we knew where the other person was coming from and what their motivations were.
There are numerous other things that I could list here, but I believe that these three are appropriate actions to help correct the main points of this misunderstanding.
I have, and do apologize to my wife for the troubles of this morning. I do love and respect her, and I want to do all I can to grow into a better husband and partner.
So there you have it, my duh moment. We all grow up hearing the advice of how to do things and how to treat people. Isn't it amazing though how we can still be surprised at the completeness of these truths.
Here are a few of these truths (NIV Version):
1Cr 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
1Cr 13:5 It is not rude, it is not self‑seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
1Cr 13:6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
1Cr 13:7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Mat 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Thanks AT&T - For Nothing
If you are lucky enough to live in an area that gets your local phone service from AT&T you will understand my pain.
I live in the country, barely. I am just outside of my local towns city limits and am of course outside of AT&T's DSL range. I will not even go into the thousands of people INSIDE the city limits that are also outside of AT&T's DSL range. AT&T sets the cable path distance from their central office at 15000 feet (without a remote terminal to extend the length), this is not limited by the technology, but by AT&T.
In my little area of America we also have numerous small phone companies that server various area around mine. Just to the west we have the old Embarq which is now CenturyLink, they offer DSL in a lot of small towns around mine and their limits are vastly farther than AT&T and they also are pretty good at installing remote terminals to extend their reach as necessary.
You would think that AT&T being the big monster they are would have DSL access to all of their customers by now, especially since they primarily do business in areas where a lot of people live, but you would be wrong. In my area ALL of the smaller and even COOP phone companies have much better high speed propagation than AT&T does in theirs.
So that leads to the question of why. Is it the money, nope, if the smaller pockets of the little phone companies can afford to expand to its smaller customer base then AT&T sure should. Plus isn't there money available to expand broadband to rural areas, yep.
Nor is the problem the technology, the manpower, or any other excuse. The problem is that AT&T does not want to share and that they don't care. You see if AT&T expands its DSL footprint they have to allow other ISPs to wholesale the access to the customers, and they don't want to.
Before you believe some of the statements going around that they are losing money on these wholesale accounts I will state that my company is one of these wholesalers and the price that we get charged is much more for the access to the customer (not including direct Internet access, mail servers, tech support, etc that we also have to have to give the customers a complete service) than AT&T sells its Internet service for directly to its customers.
I am tired of the delays, false promises, and excuses. It is high time that someone at the FCC takes a hard look at AT&T and persuades them to expand as they have been promising since the early 2000's.
Every other phone company around is expanding its footprints and offerings, there is money and benefits in doing so.
I would also like to say "Good Job" to CenturyLink, who ever thought that I would have to live farther in the country in order to get High Speed Internet.
I live in the country, barely. I am just outside of my local towns city limits and am of course outside of AT&T's DSL range. I will not even go into the thousands of people INSIDE the city limits that are also outside of AT&T's DSL range. AT&T sets the cable path distance from their central office at 15000 feet (without a remote terminal to extend the length), this is not limited by the technology, but by AT&T.
In my little area of America we also have numerous small phone companies that server various area around mine. Just to the west we have the old Embarq which is now CenturyLink, they offer DSL in a lot of small towns around mine and their limits are vastly farther than AT&T and they also are pretty good at installing remote terminals to extend their reach as necessary.
You would think that AT&T being the big monster they are would have DSL access to all of their customers by now, especially since they primarily do business in areas where a lot of people live, but you would be wrong. In my area ALL of the smaller and even COOP phone companies have much better high speed propagation than AT&T does in theirs.
So that leads to the question of why. Is it the money, nope, if the smaller pockets of the little phone companies can afford to expand to its smaller customer base then AT&T sure should. Plus isn't there money available to expand broadband to rural areas, yep.
Nor is the problem the technology, the manpower, or any other excuse. The problem is that AT&T does not want to share and that they don't care. You see if AT&T expands its DSL footprint they have to allow other ISPs to wholesale the access to the customers, and they don't want to.
Before you believe some of the statements going around that they are losing money on these wholesale accounts I will state that my company is one of these wholesalers and the price that we get charged is much more for the access to the customer (not including direct Internet access, mail servers, tech support, etc that we also have to have to give the customers a complete service) than AT&T sells its Internet service for directly to its customers.
I am tired of the delays, false promises, and excuses. It is high time that someone at the FCC takes a hard look at AT&T and persuades them to expand as they have been promising since the early 2000's.
Every other phone company around is expanding its footprints and offerings, there is money and benefits in doing so.
I would also like to say "Good Job" to CenturyLink, who ever thought that I would have to live farther in the country in order to get High Speed Internet.
Friday, January 7, 2011
The Nintendo Wii and the missing rechargable batteries.
We finally did it, a week after Christmas my wife and I decided to buy a Nintendo Wii for our four children. Having kids at home that range in ages from fifteen to five it is hard to find activities that all of the children will enjoy, not to mention my wife and I.
As I have watched them play at friends and relatives houses I could not help but wish they could have that much fun playing together at home. My kids are great, they play well together normally, get along better than my brothers and I did as kids, and get excellent grades in school. Watching them all play at the same time, helping each other, and filling the house with the sound of giggles was more than I could stand.
So to the local Game Stop I went. I purchased the Wii, enough controllers so that all four of the kids could play simultaneously, and a few other accessories. The sales lady at Game Stop asked me if I would be interested in purchasing a rechargeable battery kit for the controllers, and after finding out that the batteries only last 4 - 8 hours I decided to get the only one they had left.
So I get home and set everything up, a few hours into the fun we decided to try one of the additional games that came with the extra controllers we bought. So I put in the game, system says I have to do an update, do the update and immediately get an error message, and not a good one... GREAT!
So I grab the phone and call Nintendo. I may blog on the experience I had with Nintendo, it was quite surprising, but anyway as I was working with the young lady from tech support she asked if I was using any non-approved accessories. I quickly glanced around at the boxes (a little worried that I had voided my warranty on a 3 hour old console) and was relieved to see that everything was legit. I had only purchased Wii branded accessories, and was quite happy to tell her so.
Then I noticed it, still in the bag was the Energizer recharging kit for the controllers. I had not yet unboxed it, I had decided on the way home that I would see how long the batteries would really last before trying it. Mainly this was a little bit of my frugality coming out. The recharging kit cost $29.99 and would only help with 2 controllers, (the kit included the recharging station and 2 batteries for the controllers) I can buy rechargeable batteries for all of the controllers for less than that.
So I asked the support rep what problems they had seen, she proceeded to tell me that she had just taken two phone calls that day from customers who had purchased recharging kits for their controllers and just a few days later were having problems with their controllers working correctly, and yes Nintendo does not honor warranties when using these and like products. Here is when I get annoyed.
So I carefully (and politely) asked the young lady a multitude of questions regarding what options a customer has to power the controllers. The short answer was to purchase disposable alkaline batteries, which was not good enough for me. I asked about normal rechargeable batteries and she quietly (she really lowered her voice considerably) explained that if I was going to use them I could use NiMH rechargeable batteries in the controllers.
I asked her what Nintendo's plans were to offer a product that would allow users to recharge the controllers, she said she did not know of one.
The problem as I see it is this is a very popular console, and for good reason. If each of the owners purchase disposable batteries for the controllers we are talking millions of used batteries that will be thrown away every year. Both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox360 have rechargeable battery options, why not Nintendo?
Since I had not called about a problem with the controllers I finished up my call with tech support and went on playing. I still have not opened the recharging kit and have not decided if I will.
I do hope that Nintendo either decides to honor warranties for the controllers using the after market rechargeable batteries, or even offer one themselves. I do think it is short sided and irresponsible of them to not integrate rechargeable batteries into the controllers when they designed them.
I know many people that are using after market recharging kits without problem, and have seen messages on the Internet of people using NiMH rechargeable batteries as well. I will decide soon what direction I will take, but first I am waiting for the original batteries to die.
As I have watched them play at friends and relatives houses I could not help but wish they could have that much fun playing together at home. My kids are great, they play well together normally, get along better than my brothers and I did as kids, and get excellent grades in school. Watching them all play at the same time, helping each other, and filling the house with the sound of giggles was more than I could stand.
So to the local Game Stop I went. I purchased the Wii, enough controllers so that all four of the kids could play simultaneously, and a few other accessories. The sales lady at Game Stop asked me if I would be interested in purchasing a rechargeable battery kit for the controllers, and after finding out that the batteries only last 4 - 8 hours I decided to get the only one they had left.
So I get home and set everything up, a few hours into the fun we decided to try one of the additional games that came with the extra controllers we bought. So I put in the game, system says I have to do an update, do the update and immediately get an error message, and not a good one... GREAT!
So I grab the phone and call Nintendo. I may blog on the experience I had with Nintendo, it was quite surprising, but anyway as I was working with the young lady from tech support she asked if I was using any non-approved accessories. I quickly glanced around at the boxes (a little worried that I had voided my warranty on a 3 hour old console) and was relieved to see that everything was legit. I had only purchased Wii branded accessories, and was quite happy to tell her so.
Then I noticed it, still in the bag was the Energizer recharging kit for the controllers. I had not yet unboxed it, I had decided on the way home that I would see how long the batteries would really last before trying it. Mainly this was a little bit of my frugality coming out. The recharging kit cost $29.99 and would only help with 2 controllers, (the kit included the recharging station and 2 batteries for the controllers) I can buy rechargeable batteries for all of the controllers for less than that.
So I asked the support rep what problems they had seen, she proceeded to tell me that she had just taken two phone calls that day from customers who had purchased recharging kits for their controllers and just a few days later were having problems with their controllers working correctly, and yes Nintendo does not honor warranties when using these and like products. Here is when I get annoyed.
So I carefully (and politely) asked the young lady a multitude of questions regarding what options a customer has to power the controllers. The short answer was to purchase disposable alkaline batteries, which was not good enough for me. I asked about normal rechargeable batteries and she quietly (she really lowered her voice considerably) explained that if I was going to use them I could use NiMH rechargeable batteries in the controllers.
I asked her what Nintendo's plans were to offer a product that would allow users to recharge the controllers, she said she did not know of one.
The problem as I see it is this is a very popular console, and for good reason. If each of the owners purchase disposable batteries for the controllers we are talking millions of used batteries that will be thrown away every year. Both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox360 have rechargeable battery options, why not Nintendo?
Since I had not called about a problem with the controllers I finished up my call with tech support and went on playing. I still have not opened the recharging kit and have not decided if I will.
I do hope that Nintendo either decides to honor warranties for the controllers using the after market rechargeable batteries, or even offer one themselves. I do think it is short sided and irresponsible of them to not integrate rechargeable batteries into the controllers when they designed them.
I know many people that are using after market recharging kits without problem, and have seen messages on the Internet of people using NiMH rechargeable batteries as well. I will decide soon what direction I will take, but first I am waiting for the original batteries to die.
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