Thank You Barack Obama

Opening the mail around my house these days is rarely a pleasant experience, given the back drop of daily toil and trouble as a self-employed writer.  Can you spell plague, as in that’s how vigorously I avoid opening the mail.

Except today, I got little present from the Prez. Seems that Golden Rule, the medical insurance company from whom I purchased private health care coverage in 2011, was forced to GIVE ME A LITTLE MONEY BACK!

An unexpected windfall from a most unlikely source.

Why? It’s because of the Affordable Care Act championed by President Obama and the Democratic party. The ACA requires insurance providers to spend at least 80-percent of the premiums they collect from us premium-payin’ schlubs on (wait, wait, wait….) health care services! You know, like paying for their portion of doctor, hospital and prescription drug benefits, such as pills which cost $100 a piece. If they spend more than 20-percent of the premium dollars they collect from people like you and me on “administrative costs,”  those costly line items such as salaries, corporate jets, and ads which show happy, health insured people who can sleep at night knowing Golden Rule has got their back, if those administrative costs exceed 20%, guess what bitches? The check is in the mail.

I opened up, and there was money inside! Money, baby.

Turns out that the $84 million plus, that Golden Rule collected in Missouri last year exceeded the 80/20 split by about 6.7 percent. They spent only 73.3 percent of the money they collected for medical insurance on health care and “activities to improve health care quality” which probably could have been interpreted to include upgrading the music they play while you’re on hold waiting for them to come back on the line to tell you you’re not covered for something, because a better play list of “on hold” music might improve or prevent depression, if not psychosis.

So, now that the daily angst of stretching my meager dollars long enough launch Off the Leash, in which I talk about challenging the very angst which keeps us trapped in jobs we don’t like, simply to keep our health care coverage, has been slightly relieved by the unexpected bounty of $213.54, I am going to turn around and give 6.7 percent to Barack Obama. No wait, if I send him 12 bucks, I get another bumper sticker.

Then, I’m going to make a payment to my dentist and give my doggies a bone. Well, really, a smoked pig’s ear from the butcher shop.

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