The Business of Keeping You Alive, LLC
quantifying the value of your health
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, filled with family and joy. And at least some time off from work. And now, let’s get to it.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another!
Scene, last week. Home from the hospital. Christmas fast approaching. No travel in our immediate future so maybe some time to relax and unwind from that whole experience, and get into the groove at home.
Oh ho, not so! says the letter that arrived from our insurance company, informing us that the lad’s hospitalization was only partly covered. After that Monday, since he was eating, he should have gone home.1
So that’s cool.
Now we’ve got a bill for a little over $21k that I’m waiting anxiously to see how much I’m going to be asked to cover. I’m not sure what it says about me or our horribly broken healthcare system that I saw that number and thought “well, it’s not as bad as I’d feared.” Naturally I’m going to appeal this, and work with the hospital to do whatever I/we can to deal with this, but come on.
Echoing a previous post about how we don’t support parents, I do well. We live comfortably. If we get saddled with this bill, or a portion of it, we’ll make it work. It’s gonna suck, but it won’t ruin us. I know there are many, many people nowhere near as fortunate as we are, and that’s yet another gross failing of our country. Not just for parents, but for everyone. This is some basic, table stakes stuff here for a supposedly advanced society. Keep your people alive. Provide them the care they need to survive and thrive. We have the tools, the technology, the ability. We just lack a system that in any way supports or encourages basic humanity and empathy.
Maybe one day, we’ll actually do the right thing and take care of each other. I guess stranger things have happened.
Let’s rage
So recently, screamo great Orchid announced some reunion shows around the northeastern US. Orchid are from Amherst, MA, and members went on to groups like Ampere, Longings, and others. Not to mention Will Killingsworth recording and engineering hundreds of records for so many crucial bands over the past several decades. I snagged a ticket for Philly, I’m very stoked to see them; I never caught them on their initial run. In light of that, and of the above mess, some screamo feels appropriate. If you’ve never heard Chaos Is Me, you owe it to yourself to fix that. Not quite the screamo of your early-’00s Hot Topic crowd, this is has a foot firmly planted in hardcore and is, for my money, a little more accessible than your pageninetynine or City of Caterpillar. Check it out.
Here’s to a happy new year to you all! What are you most excited about in 2024? Sound off in the comments.
the language of the letter addressing a 7-week old child like he has the autonomy to make his own healthcare decisions is darkly hilarious, admittedly