Make your peace with kale, Karmel. (Though you could get kaleosis, rare but rather nasty.)

I've been waiting for the day that having a great health plan becomes super attractive to the ladies in this town.

It's, like, my only hope.

I'll marry you, Reymont.

[Foreword: this comment is perhaps longer than the original post – please feel free to ignore / delete / ban the commenter, etc.]

Ian, nice article. I was employed in January and underwent, “minor” surgery - something about my sphincter, a scalpel and some anesthesia. As much as that sounds like a prospect for the opening scene for HUMAN CENTIPEDE III, and despite the sour-faced, puckered reaction that often accompanies the word, “Sphincter,” it was not all that unpleasant. I don’t need to sit down anyway. I have never been able to sit for very long. No big deal. Fuck you, anal fissure [I know – that puckered face again]. Why am I waxing verbose about my rectal cavity and the month of January? Because I knew that, in April, I would no longer be employed and would, like you and so many artists, be in the market for a personal healthcare plan. I submitted an application with Blue Cross / Blue Shield and a sprightly agent said, “Hell, at your age with no major pre-existing health conditions, this ought to be a breeze.” Then I got a letter from an underwriter that read something like, “Some medical conditions, either alone or in combination with the cost of medication, present uncertain medical underwriting risks. In view of these risks, we find we are unable to offer you enrollment in the plan/policy [which, by the way, got me 3 Dr. visits per year and did not cover things like visits to the ER, surgery, removal of bee stingers, pain-numbing medication if I smash my thumb with a hammer, lice shampoo if I ride public transit in Oakland, etc.]. However, we would like to offer you the opportunity to enroll in our STANDARD RX Plan with an additional 75% monthly premium.” Because of a sphincterotomy, which is essentially as serious as getting a paper cut that heals in three days [albeit, a paper cup on your eyeball or worse, you sphincter -- it really doesn’t get any easier to say, does it]. So I called them back and said, “You dumb motherfucker, everything is a goddamned uncertain medical underwriting risk. What if a plane engine traverses a wormhole and falls through my bedroom ceiling and crushes me like Donnie Darko? What if I step on a banana peel on the BART platform and fall on the electric tracks? And get electrocuted? And then my charred body is run over by a training car that barrels through the stop because it isn’t collecting passengers? What then? Assholes [I had to].”

My point is this: I live in a place [SF] where companies realign their “strategic management” hierarchy and people like me [IT nerds] are perceived as being extraneous and disposable, which is probably true. Anyway, “reduction in force” is common and I have recently come to appreciate that terrifying sensation associated with the phrase, “Health coverage.” But hey, Fleet Week is pretty fucking cool indeed.

See you in Canada.

Nice article^^^


You know what a comment is right?


Sorry just had a bad day limping around on ankle I cant get treatment for.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ian's article loud and enthusiastically in an empty house.
I moderately enjoyed doing the same with Benny Hanna's article.

Insurance I could actually afford...I miss those days.

Depends on how much money you make you could probably qualify some-type of government funded (OHP) or subsidized health care plan in 2014, just saying...

Ha ha Fluoride lost! : D