I’m with you.

Never have I needed to work so hard to advocate for myself to get the care I needed as when I was with UHC.

By comparison, this year has held two major surgeries for me, neither expected, and my current insurer just shrugged, asked ONCE for proof of medical necessity, and paid the bill.

Also, let’s not forget the breach at a UHC subsidiary in recent months that brought down pharma payment systems for weeks…

I’ve been remote since 2014. Plenty of friends made. Wouldn’t date at work as a general rule, it creates unnecessary risk IMO.

Certainly wouldn’t eg move in with someone I worked with, etc.

Then again, being poly and happily married, risk calculus is part of my mental process before attempting to date a particular person. If it goes south, will they show up naked and screaming on my front lawn in the middle of the night?

Since an angry ex doesn’t have the option of along me look bad to my wife (who also dates), any serious crazy could escalate quickly and creatively. I want nothing to do with that.

$25 a month, US, MVNO on Verizon network.

Had to bring my own phone, which is in bad shape and I’ll have to replace eventually, but I basically don’t think about my service at all.

That MVNO also has a program to heavily discount service for up to three months due to loss of job or temp disability, because, yknow, you need a phone number to look for a job.

That discount was damn nice when I had a couple of surgeries this year.

Make sure that it can be backed up, somehow.

Save your recovery codes in an organized and secure fashion.

Offhand, Ente does backup I believe.

Bitwarden does export (save on encrypted drive, or print and put in safe deposit box)

While we can’t say for sure, I’d certainly be wargaming some possible outcomes and how to respond to them.

Wouldn’t surprise me if disability for mental health reasons was high on the list of things to cut. It’s effectively an “invisible” disability, which makes it somewhat easier to cut while limiting loss of political capital.

I wish you all the best getting through the upcoming difficult years. You’re a genuinely good person for caring and thinking far enough ahead to realize the question needs to be asked.

For other folks reading this, now is an excellent time to review your payroll deductions and ensure you’re paying for private disability coverage - both short and long term. It’s one of the least expensive ways to hedge against the crazy of the next four years.

Last month, I had a shoulder replaced that I injured in March. Seven months to get the surgery, another month before PT could start.

Waiting while in pain is brutal, but this is not a DIY project.

Not to mention, if this affects multiple limbs, there’s a very real possibility you could e.g., fall while exercising and dramatically worsen the situation.

Prices look decent at a glance as well.

I miss my BB keyboard something fierce.

Feel ya, no job is perfect. My giant employer is great about WFH for those hired as such during a particular period of time, but they’ve outsourced HR entirely to a third party - a simple inquiry becomes a three day saga, abd if I’m talking in real time to HR, voluntarily, it’s because I’ve a concern of some immediacy.

WFH plus great benefits > downsides, but it’s always a balancing act of priorities for sure.

IOS presently, partially to simplify de googling.

What Google password?

I don’t intend to browse RMS-style, but I have zero need of a Google account, nor of the major search engines directly.

I just add layers between myself and that particular company. I still can get their data, but without the creep factor.

Mostly.

It’s an imperfect solution, but I’m more comfortable with access by proxy than direct access.

1. Suffer through working life
2. Retire, downsize, go see the world without having to convince a gf/partner

Nothing wrong with disliking dating, it’s a screwy social ritual intended to use a short series of interactions to determine if this is a person you could trust and genuinely like enough to share everything - including tough mornings - and compromise with for the next fifty years.

Works for some folks. Doesn’t work for others. I’m happily married, took a couple false starts and youthful indiscretions to get here - as well as the magic of the internet and some long discussions about relationships/commitment/poly/nonstandard stuff.

Works for us, maybe not for most.

Curious how common the truly bad ones are. I’d assume quite uncommon between licensing, hospital hiring, chart data analysis at scale, etc., but…

Counting down the days to a relatively minor surgery I need. No real concerns, I’ve met the lead surgeon a few times, but plenty of unknown humans are part of the process too.

Company has low-key software trainers - a ton of information to convey, but they mostly embrace and gently corral the inevitable side convos you get in a Teams room of thirty very confused people.

Some of us were more vocal than others and a handful were less pleasant. During a brief silence, as a woman is about to ask a valid question, we ALL hear,

“Oh, there’s Jennifer, running her fat fucking mouth again! (Pause) (gasp from speaker)”

Guy wasn’t getting it anyway, but he didn’t last the rest of the morning.

There were 29 of us in that room, two years ago. Now there are six of us remaining. Mouthy guy above is the only one I know left involuntarily.

18, sex in the stock room, didn’t get caught.

Even had a handful of more standard dates afterwards, always with sex.

No negative outcome, fortunately. Except for the really damn cold stockroom floor, but that was her problem not mine…

Think we just lost interest, I moved onto another job, that was that.

Wasn’t sure I’d agree when I started reading, but I like the way you think.

I benefit from an orphan drug, and the R&D was most definitely subsidised by the public purse.

My insurance pays a few grand a month for it.

The mfg coupon covers most of the rest, minus a copay.

This is the second iteration of the original drug. The first hasn’t meaningfully fallen in price and only the original company can manufacture and distribute the generic even under the name of competitors.

There was no breakthrough in the second iteration, and the logic to solve the “problem” they solved was straightforward. So now I pay more, for an anecdotally less effective version that addresses a risk irrelevant to me but present in the original.

There is yet a third iteration on the way.

Shock revelations:

• pharma companies are greedy and will double dip against both government subsidies and patients/insurance at every opportunity.
• XX Pharma didn’t pay for the original R&D, my gov did.
• if one replaces Na with a/several similar elements, one still ends up with a salt, often resulting in a drug variant that “doesn’t affect blood pressure” and offers no other real benefits, nor risks.
• Clinical trials for said alternative salt are broadly leas expensive than for the original. That does not result in lower prices.

Nationalise pharma research, if not the manufacturers.

Also, generics are often manufactured in countries with, shall we say, fewer controls and regulations. Know who makes those pills and where. If you can’t stomach the FDA reports on that manufacturer, find a pharmacy who will sell you something else…

That’s not per se inaccurate. There would have been relatively little cultural divergence at that point, so large scale “take what you like and leave the rest” would have been reasonable.

Wouldn’t want to copy and paste their laws now (see “Safety of Rwanda” bill under the prior PM), and we made the right decision from the start to dispose of honours with titles altogether.

Not, of course, that we’ve banished the aristocracy, or even the generally well-off, but can you imagine an effusive Sir ($FalconRocketGuy)?

My understanding in the US (generally, given all our various types of jurisdictions) is that the concept cannot be discussed by a jury/juror, at risk of a mistrial.

Considering how many ancient laws are still on the books but “generally understood” to be not enforced, and how many rabid DAs we have, in some cases nullification is the best shot at a fair trial.

Appeals are useful, but take significant time and money. So much simpler to have the jury come to an understanding that the law is ridiculous on its face and from a bygone era.

The UK variant on a Constitution has always intrigued me, being ~unwritten, but I’ve never had the time and energy to delve too deeply into the underlying ideas.

Generally? Well within the executive power / administrative law of any given state as noted by BlueFalcon below.

Practically? I’d expect it to be quite a struggle. For licensed professions in general (doctors, real estate, insurance, hairdressers, etc.) most or all states ask a question to the effect of “Has your license for profession ever been suspended or revoked in any other state?”. It may or may not be an automatic disqualifier, but even if not it’s an uphill battle.

It prevents the real estate agent who stole someone’s earnest money from upping stakes to the next state and getting licensed, but since the standards for suspending/revoking licenses vary widely by state I lean towards believing that perhaps it should be a factor, and perhaps the state board of profession should meet to review the application, but previous disciplinary action in some other state is in no way an absolute statement about someone’s fitness to practice in their chosen field.

Sell them to someone who will test and resell them to the airline or medical industry… Manufacturing is a likely customer as well, plenty of legacy equipment there that’s airgapped and still running decades-old hw/sw.

Youtube warning, some Boeing 747s

Recent BBC article

(This is a wrong answer since you only have a single pack. If you had several cases, you might actually be able to make a buck)