Top 4 Video Game Beginnings

It’s that time of year again where work is taking much of my free time.  As a result, during day hours, I am working all the time.  At night, I’m playing video games (what else are evenings for, right?).  And I’m almost done playing through Metal Gear 1 through Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.  And it occurs to me that the things I appreciate the most in video games is the story.  There is nothing more important than the beginning to the story.  The beginning introduces you to the world, the characters, and sets up a plot.  So many games take the beginning for granted solely to drop you right into the action.  But the most memorable games I’ve played hang back on the action for a bit to set up the story a little better.  So here, without further ado, is my favorite four beginnings to video games.

#4: Out of This World: Remember when I said “memorable?”  Well, this is the opening to a story from a video game from 1992 and on my beloved Apple IIGS!  Yes, I still remember it.  In fact, I seem to recall I wanted to get this game because of the opening cut scene.  I remember thinking it is the most amazing opening to a video game I’ve ever seen.  My, how things have improved since then.

#3: Starlancer:   I saw this game for the first time as it was playing on the TV of a Game Crazy.  I remember thinking “wow!  What a great movie.  This would make a great video game!”  While the graphics look somewhat dated today, I still think it would make a great video game.  Little did I know when I was first watching it that the Starlancer game was created by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts. The reason I liked it, is he totally ripped himself off in this game.  When I saw this, it was 4 years after the game came out.  I found a copy of the game used on PC and found it again on the Dreamcast (also long gone by the time I saw it the opening).  I’m a little late to the party, but look at all the money I saved because of it!  Still would make a great movie, don’t you think?

#2: Halo 2:  I’m one of those rare specimens that likes playing Halo for the single player campaign.  I don’t really care for multiplayer.  Halo has a very good story.  While Halo 3 has a much better playable portion of the game, I happen to think the story in Halo 2 is much better.  I recently replayed Halo 3, and there’s a lot of gaps in logic there.  I had trouble following it.  The game was so good, I didn’t care.  But this is about story.  Here’s the opening to Halo 2.

#1: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: As I said, I’m replaying the entire series as well as playing MGS4 for the first time.  I haven’t decided if I like #4 more than #3.  But I’m sure I like the overall experience of #3 better to this point.  There are definite advantages to #4 that #3 didn’t have, but #3: Snake Eater presented to me the best overall package that I enjoy playing and replaying over and over again.  The opening of the game (see below) is one of the best openings ever, the game play is terrific, the ending chase sequence — they could make an entire game out of it!  And the ending is so emotional it brings a tear to my eyes every time.  Best story game ever!

The Wisdom of Solid Snake

As I stated in my last post, I was in the middle of playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty last week.  I’m now about done with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.  I’m working my way up to finally playing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots for the first time.  I wanted to play them all starting with the original MSX Metal Gear and work my way through the series because I think it is such a great overall story.

As I finished MGS2 last week, I realized that the final soliloquy from Snake sums up very well for me my own feelings about children.  I am 33, married, and have no kids.  There is no biological reason for this.  My wife and I simply choose not to have any.  There are many things in my life I feel I have to live for, and while I do not begrudge anyone who lives solely for their children, I have believed for a very long time that I have other things to live for.

So in the future, should someone ask me why I do not have children, I am going to direct them to this blog post, which sums up my feelings and puts said feelings into words exactly how I wish I could express them.  You can see the speech delivered quite masterfully by Snake voice actor David Hayter.  Or if the link ever gets taken down, I will also include the text of the speech below the video.

Transcription:

Life isn’t just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA. Through speech, music, literature and movies… what we’ve seen, heard, felt …anger, joy and sorrow… these are the things I will pass on. That’s what I live for.

We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light. We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with. The human race will probably come to an end some time, and new species may rule over this planet. Earth may not be forever, but we still have the responsibility to leave what traces of life we can. Building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing.

They’re Comin’ to Get You, Man!

As I get older, I tend to think less positively about things like conspiracy theories, or the “good ‘ol boy network.”  I heard a lot about that sort of thing growing up and even believed it while I was in my teenage years through my twenties.  Some of the more popular conspiracies I heard about included:

• The government is listening in on our conversations and blacklisting people they think might threaten them.
• The government wants the rich to stay rich and the poor to stay poor.
• I can’t work for these people because I don’t have the right family background.
• They fired me because I am [insert reason of race/religion/color/gender here].
• All these corporations are in it for nothing except to give their CEO more money.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but you get the idea from these examples.  This past week I just heard a bunch of fresh ones; this has been on my mind recently.  Additionally, I’m in the middle of replaying Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which is a massive, 12 hour long conspiracy theory.

Let’s look at some of these questions.  As an entity, do you believe your government is organized enough to keep a lid on mass kidnappings and poisonings of its population?  And secret police?  Really?  Aren’t you the same people who complain the government can’t even deliver your mail competently?  Do you really think they are organized enough to commit mass crime against their own population?  C’mon, that makes a great movie, or a great novel, but in reality?  Is the Man really that good at his job?

What about the large, greedy corporation?  The insurance companies, the drug manufacturers, the food corporations?  These are just a few examples that show up in the news, but virtually every large corporation is villainized over something.  Wal-Mart keeps their employees poor.  Pfizer severely overcharges for its prescriptions.  Every health insurance company is uncaring.  Yeah, sure.  The Man still keeping you down.

How’s about forty years of racial tension?  And I know that I’m skiing on a slippery slope here because of how deep these feelings go.  But do you think, in the year 2009, a person is fired because of skin color, ethnicity, or religion?  Are employers that stupid?  Are managers that dumb?  Are the “good ‘ol boys” really still there after the Equal Rights Movement?  After thirty years of protesting and racial violence?  To be fair, this is one area that still has a ways to go.  But I turn on the news today, and CNN’s reporting of inequality looks identical to Walter Cronkite’s reporting of it back in the 1970’s.  In thirty years, the same problems exist?  The Man still keeping you from getting ahead?

I have a problem with this.  I have a *BIG* problem with this.  I’m a little offended by all this talk, and as time passes, I find the voices are getting louder and the voice of reason is getting meeker.  I guess the reason this kind of attitude is distressing me so is because, at age thirty-three, I find myself *AS* the Man.

Yup, that’s right.  I’m to blame.  Why?  I’m a business owner.  Strike one.  I independently contract with insurance companies to get their wares into the public’s hands.  Strike two.  I am not only a local board member of the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors, but I’m also the local chair of the organization’s national political action committee, as well as a contributor.  Strike three, I’m out.  I guess I’m your enemy.

Hi there, how are you?  Would you like to sit down?  Can I get you a soda?

So as your enemy, I guess I get to defend myself on this blog ‘o mine.  Feel free to comment accordingly.

Let’s talk about government a moment.  The American government gets more international play than any other government in the world; seconded by Great Britain (which, by the way, is a shame they come in second.  I find their Parliamentary debates to be a lot more interesting.  At least more action-packed.  And you get to see your elected official fight for your rights in a literal sense).  I think what we forget about the U.S. Government, or any Republic or Democratic government, is that the people that run it are placed into power by the majority.  That means that if a politician pisses off enough people then they lose their job come next election.  Let’s talk about that national political action committee that I’m the local chair of.  The reason I volunteered for this job is because I want to understand the inner workings of government a little better and how a group’s point of view is heard and taken into consideration when creating state and federal law.  Our committee is certainly not the largest in the nation (that would be AARP’s), but it is certainly one of the better-funded PAC’s in the U.S.  You know what I’ve learned so far?  You do not buy a politician.  You do not buy votes.  You do not buy into a law.  As far as I can see, and I’ve gotten somewhat involved in this process recently with health care legislation being up close and personal to me, the only thing the PAC’s money is buying is the time of the lawmakers.  All our money is getting us is the ability for our voice to be heard by the right people.  Our point of view is getting expressed in the right manner to the right people.  That’s all this well-funded PAC is getting me.  Why do I bring this up?  Because this particular PAC came under fire, incorrectly, I might add, by an MSNBC commentator who singled out our PAC as being in the pocket of the insurance industry and buying off politicians to kill health care reform (which, by the way, is not our PAC.  Our PAC represents the agents that are independent and has nothing to do with insurance companies.  They have their own groups).  I think we sometimes forget what government is.  It is people! 100% people.  That’s people-comma-Soylent Green is.  If we think of government as one large conglomerate of an operation, we tend to forget what it is.  And yes, a person can most definitely be evil.  And if you get a group of evil people together than you really have nothing more than a small group of evil people.  Do you really think 100% of your government representatives are trying to get you?  Actually, most people tend to find everyone in Congress except their own representatives are corrupt.  That’s not right either, folks.  I believe there’s a paradox in there somewhere.  A human being gets into a position where they feel they can make a difference, make a positive change.  I believe many of them spend their whole lives trying to do that; excepting for the one or two that truly do have evil issues.  But I believe they get found out over time anyway.  A politician doesn’t go into government to screw you over.  They go there because they believe they can bring about a positive change.  And yes, that means they get to hear the sides to an argument.  And if you believe your voice isn’t being heard, you need to speak louder.  If you believe the politicians are only in it for themselves, then you don’t have a lot of faith in your neighbor, your clergy, your family, your schoolteacher: all of whom got together as a large group one November day and voted that person in.

And what about the private company?  I seem to be a corporate apologist on this blog lately.  Part of that probably is because I own a company.  What I’ve been seeing as a general attitude by people towards corporations is that people feel the companies are not in business for anything except to make money for themselves and their shareholders at the expense of their customers.  Okay, if that’s how you feel, let’s talk about that.  First off, a company’s sole purpose in existing is to create jobs and bring business to the community it resides in while making money so those who work for it can get paid.  I admit some companies have been a little unethical in recent times regarding how they treat employees, but not every company has.  Are companies really out to screw everyone?  Tobacco companies are Public Enemy #1 right now, but have they put their products in your hands?  Yes, OK, back before the 1960’s they did lie about what they knew their products were doing.  But that was forty frigging years ago!  In 2009, there is no way you are getting their product unknowingly.  So if you smoke it and complain later … you are an idiot.  A moron.  A bombastic simpleton.  Since people still smoke, that means there is still a market for their product.  Therefore, jobs are created, wealth is created, communities flourish, and taxes are paid.  There are good things provided by companies, you know.  Hell, does anyone think McDonald’s serves food of any nutritional value?  Depending on where you live when you read this, you might be more or less aware, but I live only 200 miles from where CBS recently reported is the most unhealthy city in America.  And yes, it is reflected here.  I lost almost 100 pounds a year ago, I’m going to probably lose another 40 before I’m done, and even now, I’m a small person compared to almost everybody else around me.  They take their fast food seriously here, and there’s no outrage yet.  But mark my words, in less than 20 years time, fast food is going to be seen as the new tobacco company.  My question is, “why?”  Idiots come in and feed their children with this crap when there’s a perfectly serviceable supermarket the same distance away.  Why go to McDonalds for a burger when you could go to the market for a fruit cup?  Not cool enough for you?  Why is that McDonalds responsibility?  They hire people who might not normally get a good job.  They pay taxes, they serve a purpose.  Are they really evil because you walked in of your own accord to buy their “food”?  I don’t blame McDonalds.  A market exists and they are filling the need.  Nothing wrong with that.

And finally, let’s talk about the old boy network conspiracy.  What the hell is that supposed to be?  You think because you are a different religion, color, or background that I wouldn’t hire you?  Hell no.  If the job requires writing skills, you better know how to write well.  If the job requires good communication skills, you better know how to communicate clearly.  If the job I have requires you need some semblance of intelligence, then you’d better show me you have basic intelligence skills.  And if my job requires a motivated person who will start up their own projects themselves rather than wait for me to assign them tasks, then they’d better show me proof of them being self-starters.  If I know Ralph is looking for a job and I know a little about Ralph and what he can do, then yes, he’ll be the one I hire.  But if I don’t know anyone and I’m looking for someone, then I’m going to look at everyone that applies based on the skill set they put on paper and the eloquence they demonstrate in the interview.  But I’m not going to hire a white guy if he can’t talk well when the job requires speaking to the public, and I’m not going to hire a person of a minority religion if they can’t be available on a certain day when the job requires them to be available on that day.  It is not the right match.  And you know something?  My little company will act the same on this as the largest 1,000 companies in the U.S.  We don’t care about your background if it isn’t relevant to the job.  We care if you have the necessary skills to do the job.  That’s it.  So rather than complain it is it is a conspiracy that you didn’t get a job or lost your job, why don’t you look within yourself to see where you could improve for the future.  Maybe in your next position you’ll be a perfect match.

Remember, when you are reading a book or watching a movie, you need conspiracy to make the book or movie interesting.  Same with video games.  The problem is, we forget that these are fiction.  Real life is 99% boring, and that doesn’t make for interesting drama.  But it is true.  Cut the companies and the government a little slack.  They aren’t out to get you.  You have the same chance of failure and of success as the next guy.  Go after it.

Opinion: the new iPhone 3GS

The reason I title this as “opinion” and not “review” is that reviews are supposed to be journalistic, fair, balanced.  I don’t have enough information about other phones to balance this out.  My experience is between the original iPhone and the new one.

It was time for an upgrade.  I’ve had the original iPhone since about a week after its very first price drop and I’ve loved it.  The phone made calls well, was great for email, and was perfectly servicable for internet browsing.  As Apple kept on updating the software and apps came about, I found the device started working slower.  Although it still worked really well as a phone (please note that the compliments I am lavishing on the iPhone working as a phone are meant as a description of the Apple-branded hardware’s ability to make and receive calls well.  I am *NOT* complimenting AT&T on their service — we’ll get to them later).

As anyone who has had an iPhone knows by now, the apps are what make you keep your iPhone.  Being able to browse email and the internet is great and all, but the utility available through apps are what make you not change phones.

So my AppleCare warranty ended on September 7 for my original iPhone.  On September 10, I placed an order at the online Apple store for an upgrade to the iPhone 3GS.  By the way, if anyone is wondering if you should but the AppleCare warranty, here is my advice: 2 out of every 3 Apple products I’ve ever owned…..and I’ve owned Apple products for so long that my first Apple product was an Apple //e, have needed some type of repair work.  I’m pretty sure it isn’t shoddy workmanship on Apple’s part.  I simply use my tech more than the average consumer.  Given my history with devices breaking down, I usually figure the additional AppleCare warranty in as part of the original purchase price.  I also think Apple times when their warranties to run out perfectly.  When the warranty runs out, technology on whatever product it is advances to where I don’t want to use the old hardware anymore.  As a matter of fact, this computer I am typing on now just ran out of warranty two months ago and I’ve been giving serious consideration to upgrading the end of this year.

Anyway, the phone came about a week later (direct from China to my house, if the FedEx tracking information is to be believed).  I bought a 16GB white model; I figured every other phone I’ve ever owned was either silver or black, so a white iPhone will be a nice change.  I was originally going to get the 32GB phone and use it to replace my recently stolen iPod Touch, but when Apple announced the new iPod Nano, I was so impressed with it that I got a smaller phone and a Nano.

The front of the iPhone looks exactly the same as the original.  You cannot tell the difference.  The buttons went from plastic to silver (or metallic silver-painted plastic.  I am not sure which) and seem much more durable.  The back is slightly curved, so it feels a lot better to hold.  One of the few issues I had with the original iPhone was if I held it to my ear for a long, protracted conversation, my arm would cramp up.  That isn’t the case with the new back design.  The headphone jack is no longer recessed, so you don’t need an adapter to use standard headphones with the device (why did they do that with the original in the first place?), and the speakerphone is much louder and clearer than the original’s.  One of the weirdest sensations of the new iPhone is touching it.  Apple layered an oleophobic coating on it.  It gives a not-quite-liquid/not-quite solid feeling to the phone when you drag your finger around the surface.  What this is (and I’m going to refer to it from here on out in pronoun form because it takes me forever to spell “oleophobic” correctly) is a coating on the glass for fingerprints and face prints.  As anyone who has held any generation iPhone knows, it doesn’t take a lot for the iPhone to get smears and smudges on it.  Simple to clean: just rub it on your pant leg for a few seconds.  This coating doesn’t stop those smears, but when you wipe the phone on your pants or shirt, it comes off a lot cleaner and without a leftover oil film that never seems to completely go away on the original iPhone.  If you would like more information on this coating, I direct you to this page on Gizmodo where Bill Nye, The Science Guy does what he does best: ’splain things.

And the phone is fast.  How fast is it?  Everything takes little or no waiting.  The original has gotten to where there is a small delay for everything you do (and I assume the original 3G is the same way since it has the same brain as my original iPhone).  Turn the phone sideways, lag.  Type on the keyboard, lag.  Load an application, lag so long my beard grows.  Even when the phone interrupts something else I’m doing on the device to tell me a call is coming in, there’s a lag where nothing happens for a second.  All of this is corrected on the new 3GS and I welcome it.

Things that haven’t changed: really everything is the same except for the speed, the plastic back, the coating, and the camera.  I haven’t mentioned the camera because I haven’t really used it yet; but it shoots and edits videos now!  If you took a look at the front of the 2 phones, you couldn’t tell the difference.  That’s a good thing.  I very rarely comment on internet blogs because it is primarily a tool for 12 year olds with too much time on their hands, but I had to about a month ago when Apple answered the FCC’s question about why they rejected Google’s Voice app.  Apple claimed that when you installed the app, it rerouted your phone’s voicemail through Google’s system.  I said “thank you Apple.”  You wouldn’t believe how many people slammed me.  This is, first and foremost, my phone after all, and I appreciate Apple protecting my desire to keep it that way.  Get an iPod Touch if you want something else, but my iPhone will always be a great phone first and everything else second.  I like the fact that the interface, the design, and the experience with the iPhone hasn’t changed since day one.

Onto apps.  As I said earlier, apps (not copy and paste, which by the way, I still haven’t used) are what make you want to keep your phone.  They’ve turned my iPhone into something more.  And I’ve only bought a couple.  Most of this phone’s app functionality, I added for free.  There are a couple of apps that I use on a regular basis.  I’ll list a few of my favorite apps here along with the price, if any.

Skype [free]: While the app itself is free, I pay an annual fee to make outgoing calls with it.  I use Skype for free long distance calls both personally and professionally.  Most used app in my phone.

Facebook [free]: Yup, I’m on it.  Don’t use it on my phone too often, but glad it is there.

Tweetdeck [free]: My Twitter app.  Yes, I am on Twitter, but I don’t really use it.  I mostly use it as a way of following people I want to follow.  I don’t post much on it.

Regator [free]: While I have other news and event apps on my phone, this one is far and wide the best.  Regator, which is also available on your computer, is like a “best of…” featuring blogs on the internet.  One of the nest ways I’ve found to read any type of news.

Amazon.com [free]: There’s something zen about buying headlight bulbs on your phone on Amazon in the parking lot of a Pep Boys.  That’s all I’ll say there.

Snaptell [free]: A frakking awsome app.  You use the iPhone camera to take a picture of the cover of a book, the app uploads it and comes back with identifying information on what the book is and how much it costs at various e-tailers.  I’ve saved a lot of money with this app.

Kindle [free]: If you have an Amazon Kindle, you know what this does, if you don’t, then there’s no point in considering it.

Pzizz [$2.99]: I’ve been a fan of Pzizz for several years.  I go to sleep listening to it every night.  It is a soundtrack that you can customize for napping or sleeping.  You might think it is silly, but go to their website and try a free demo of it.  You will sleep better with their sleep module, and their nap module will leave you refreshed and energized when you wake up.  The iPhone app is the energizer module only (at this time) and it is just like the computer version.  My wife and I both use it and think it is great.

Postman [$.99]: Saw this on an Apple commercial and fell in love with it.  Use your camera to take a picture and then turn it into an e-postcard; share it over email or Facebook.

SkyVoyager [$14.99]: I got this when it was free, but now it has a charge to it.  Use the phone’s WI-FI location service or the GPS to find where you are and you can map the stars in the sky with it.  My wife gets more use out of this app than I do.

CardSnap [$15.99 or $.99 for the lite version]: The most I’ve ever paid for an app is $15.99 and it is well worth it.  I get a lot of business cards in my work.  LOTS of them.  Unlike Palms or Blackberries, there hasn’t really been a way to get them scanned into the iPhone until this app came out.  What you do is take a picture of the business card and then upload it to the Card Snap people.  They OCR it for you and drop it into your iPhone’s Contact List format and then send it back to you.  It takes anywhere from 2 to 12 hours, but when it comes back, I have that card’s info placed right in my phone.  It isn’t 100% accurate, so check it over, but I’d say it is 90% accurate,  Certainly good enough for me to trust.  One thing: it only works on the new iPhone 3GS.  Gotta have the better camera.

That’s a sample of why I’m still an iPhone user.  Now, a word about the only bad thing about the phone: HI, AT&T!  HOW ARE YOU?  CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

Jumping from the original iPhone plan to the iPhone 3GS plan meant a $10/month increase in cost because of the faster network.  Unfortunately, the “faster network” doesn’t work in my home town.  Hell, frakking AT&T doesn’t work in my own house!  When I work, I get to experience AT&T’s 3G network and it is just fine, but not when I’m home.  To AT&T’s credit, when I’m NOT at home, I never get a dropped call anymore, something that was a fairly frequent problem when I first got my original iPhone, but the phone doesn’t work in my house!  And until I’m at least 20 miles outside of Mansfield, Ohio, I can turn off the 3G radio to save battery power because there is no 3G here.  Yet, I get to pay the additional $10 a month for it.  No consumer resentment here; not at all.  Should Apple make a CDMA phone so I could keep the phone but make a move to Verizon or Sprint, I’m there.  Unless AT&T gets their act together, of course.  When people ask me what I think of my phone, my answer is always, “love the phone, hate the service.”  It really is the best phone I’ve ever owned, but the worst cell signal I’ve ever had.  Strangely enough, it isn’t the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had.  That award goes to Verizon, who I originally left to get my first iPhone because their customer service was so bad.  I wonder if Verizon gets an iPhone, if I’d want to switch and risk more bad customer service and good signal strength or stay with AT&T which has good customer service and bad signal strength?

More Info About Healthcare Costs

I’m actually amazed how often this sort of thing happens to me.  I post something on this blog, and then someone else, someone much more reputable than I, says the same thing.  And to top it off, a lot of times they say it better than I do.  This is no exception.  I posted my three part essay about health insurance almost a month ago.  A week after the final post was published, I am down in Orlando, FL at the national NAIFA convention.  At what turned out to be the last AHIA meeting (the health insurance portion of AHIA.  They aren’t gone, they just folded back into the full NAIFA), they gave out this booklet that agents can purchase and give to all their clients as a door opener to discuss health insurance.  We get these sorts of things all the time in insurance.  Most of them, in my opinion, are gimmicky and the return is not worth the dollars spent into getting involved with these things.  Plus some of them are outright wrong.  This book, however, is a very interesting exception.  It is called “Why Health Care Costs So Much? The Solution: Consumers  Book One.”  It is written by Greg Dattilo and Dave Racer.  It is a very easy to read and easy to understand background into skyrocketing costs regarding healthcare.

The authors put into one succinct sentence what I was trying to explain in a much more complicated way in my essays.  I like this book’s way better.  Want to know the secret?  You’ll kick yourself for not thinking about it yourself.  All the authors want people to do is to start asking their doctors the following question:

“How much does this cost?”

Think about that a moment.  If you have insurance, do you ever ask your health care provider how much anything costs?  No, you ask your health care provider how much your copay is.  Not how much is the total bill.  So what happens: we get our low copay and the insurance company gets charged the rest.  Then what?  Insurance companies are overcharged for routine examinations and so they have to raise premiums to compensate for increased claims costs.  If you don’t care about any other cost except your copay, you really should.  If your copay remains at $20 but your premiums hike from $100 to $350 a month, are you really concerned about the right thing?  Remember, in a free market economy like the United States, prices are set by the consumer.  If consumers are not asking how much something costs, then health care providers can charge whatever the hell they feel like charging.  The book contrasts this with Medicare, which is the largest insurer in the U.S.  Medicare always asks how much something costs.  As a result, people on Medicare’s costs are very low.  Contrast that to non-Medicare costs for the exact same thing.  It’s frakking out of this world!  Try it sometime and see for yourself.

As I said in a previous post, my health insurance is a high deductible plan, which I like and am happy with for a number of reasons.  However, ever since I’ve had it, I’ve been conscious of the fact that I must always ask the doctor how much something will cost.  Unless it is an emergency or I am being an idiot, I’ll be paying everything up front for a few thousand dollars.  That’s my incentive for asking.  But, I admit I was just like everyone else when I had traditional major medical insurance where I paid my $20 and didn’t think about anything else.  My move to a high deductible plan forced me to be a conscientious shopper of health care.  Maybe while we are talking about health care reform in Washington or our Town Hall Meetings, this should be a more visible option to solve our problems?  After all, when was the last time you got your car serviced without asking how much it cost?  When was the last time you brought a contractor into your home without asking how much the work would cost?  Even if insurance pays for these services due to some unfortunate accident, we still ask how much something costs.  Why don’t we do this for our healthcare?

This book is primarily meant to be purchased in bulk, but you can purchase it individually at this site.  Be aware there are multiple quantity options for ordering at this page.  The button at the bottom is for a single copy.  One copy at the time of this post is only $3.50.  It is more than worth that.

The book is supposed to be the first book in a series of six.  It came out the beginning of 2009, and frankly, if the others aren’t out by now, what with healthcare being in the news and all, the others probably, and unfortunately, won’t be coming out.  It doesn’t matter.  This book concerns you.  It concerns your family, and it concerns your money.  Get a copy.  Hell, get two give the second to someone you care about.

Again, the website to order the book is http://www.alethospress.com/howmuch.htm And by the way, there is no Amazon link here.  I get nothing by sending you to this site, and I’ve never met or had contact of any kind with the authors of this book.  I just believe it is important you read this.

And if you haven’t read my essays on health insurance, here is Part One.  Part Two.  And Part Three.

Things You Should Know About Health Insurance by a Health Insurance Broker Part 3

Time to finish up my three part essay on health insurance from my side of the table.

Pre-Existing Conditions

I have to admit, I’m quite surprised that the term “pre-existing conditions” has become a pejorative word.  Everyone thinks that pre-existing conditions is now a clause in an insurance contract that will allow the evil, greedy insurance companies to get out of paying their claim.  The truth is, the term makes for nice political rallies and to get people all bent out of shape, but people don’t realize what a pre-existing condition really is.   A pre-existing condition is something you already have before you took out your new insurance contract.  It literally means “a condition that exists prior to…” As it stands today, an insurance company can do one of three things for your pre-existing condition.  The first is nothing.  They can accept what you’ve got now as an acceptable risk.  As long as you are honest with the company on the application, if they accept that you have something and don’t specifically mark a restriction for that condition on the contract, they’ll cover it at dollar one, day one.  The second thing the company can do is cover everything that could go wrong with you except that one problem.  And they can exclude it for a certain amount of time or forever.  The third option, which is the traditional option insurance companies used to use before they came up with pre-existing condition clauses, is they can outright deny you coverage.  Whatever that pre-existing condition is, the company thinks it makes you an unacceptable risk and you can’t get coverage.

I’ve sold hundreds of health insurance policies, and I am always amazed how many people outright refuse health insurance coverage if something they have is excluded as a pre-existing condition.  That means if they had a heart attack and the insurance company wants to exclude that, they’ll still cover you for everything except another heart attack!  That’s an insurance company trying to strike a bargain with you.  Twenty years ago, they wouldn’t have even done that.  Today, they would think you are still an acceptable risk for everything except a heart attack.  Get hit by a car: covered.  Break your leg: covered.  Need a hip replacement: covered.  Have another heart attack: not covered.  You won’t believe how many people want an all or nothing scenario.  And as someone whose agency can write for every major medical carrier in his state, I assure you that the offer presented to our clients is the best offer any carrier is going to give because we check them all for every applicant.  Since they can’t get any better with any other carrier, they’d rather go uninsured.  You can’t do that.  You’ve got to strike a bargain, or face financial ruin if you need to use your health insurance.

Pre-existing conditions are a subset of adverse selection, which I mentioned in part one.  The healthiest people don’t usually want to buy insurance.  Only the sickest.  So if only sick people bought insurance, the insurance companies wouldn’t have enough money to pay out claims to their policyholders.  The idea of a pre-existing condition clause is a negotiation between an applicant and a policyholder for insurance.  Before those existed, you wouldn’t have gotten that.  Believe it or not, the idea of pre-existing condition clauses is an improvement over the old system of accept or don’t accept.  In my opinion, the mandatory removal of pre-existing conditions might be the best part of this health care reform, if it can be done in such as way where the insurance companies can still make money to pay for the claims of those of us who would use the care at a later time (in other words, I’m all for removing pre-existing conditions so long as it doesn’t bankrupt the insurance company I pay my premiums to).

The cost of health care

How much do you think your doctor visit really costs?  $25?  $15?  $50?  No.  A doctor’s visit typically costs within the $100 and up price range.  If you have insurance, you’ve only been paying $25, $15, etc.  That’s because almost all major medical insurance is done through a series of doctor, clinic, and hospital networks.  Every doctor’s facility pays a membership fee and signs a contract to be a part of that network.  The trade-off for this is as follows: the insurance company is going to direct massive quantities of patients towards those doctors.  In return, the doctors are going to slash their prices for the insurance companies.  It is the same as buying any other product in bulk.  As a result, we have no idea how much health care costs until we are without insurance.

As an example: There was a period of about six months between when I lost my job and started up the company I have now.  During this period, I could not afford health insurance until things got stabilized.  At one point, we had to go to the doctor for an injection.  The bill was about $165.  When we got our new health insurance, it was a high deductible plan, which meant the insurance company pays nothing until that deductible is met, we pay 100% of the insurance company-negotiated charge.  The bill for the exact same injection next time we went was $13!  And that was just for one tiny injection!  Try to imagine a hospital charge if we didn’t have insurance.  People who do not have insurance might find themselves bankrupt very quickly in the event of a medical emergency.  Health insurance, if it does nothing else for you, will keep your costs low and manageable.  If you go to a doctor only once or twice a year, should an emergency happen, your health insurance will save your financial life as much as your doctor will save your physical life.

Claims

I’ve saved the last topic in this essay for the last thing you use your insurance, any insurance, for.  As a matter of fact, it is the one and only thing you use insurance for!  Insurance companies take a lot of flak for not paying claims.  And it is very easy to villainize an insurance company if they don’t pay a claim.  As I mentioned in part two of this essay, an insurance policy is a contract.  An insurance company will always honor their contract.  They will never do any less.  However, they will never do any more, either.  If you ever read through your insurance policy, claims are broken up typically into several sections:

• What constitutes as claim
• How do you file a claim
• How do you collect benefits from a claim
• Why is the claim being filed (what specific health problems led to the doctor/hospital visit?)
• Rejection of claims
• Fraud/abuse
• Appeals

Most of those are pretty self-explanatory.  Definitions of what a claim is, how to file one, and how do you get paid, are so basic that they need no explanation.  As for the “why,” that is answered in the schedule of benefits, which as I explained in part two is not part of most employer covered health certificates and it is what leads to so many rejections.  Generally, if you have an individual policy and you want to know what isn’t covered, look under “exclusions.”  Usually, if what you want to get done isn’t there either specifically or in general terms, it is covered.  When in doubt, ask your insurance agent.

Fraud and abuse, however, is a huge problem with health insurance.  Abuse is pretty cut and dry: if you try to get the insurance company to pay for something that normally wouldn’t be paid for if no insurance was present, or if the injury is self-inflicted, that’s abuse.  As a matter of fact, those are usually the first two bullet points under exclusions.  Fraud, on the other hand, is a different story.  From my chair, there’s two types of fraud: an error or omission by the applicant/policyholder, and an error or omission by the agent.

Let’s start with an error or omission by the client.  There is a reason insurance applications are usually about ten pages long and growing.  When companies underwrite, or check your medical history to see if you are a good risk, they have specific criteria they want to ask you regarding your health history.  Some companies want to know about certain things going back two years, some five, some ten, some your whole life.  Usually, it is a yes or no, with a request for more details of any yes answers.  Usually, an insurance company underwriter will call up the client at some point in the underwriting process to re-ask a bunch of those questions again to take care of any memory lapses.  But sometimes, a client will neglect to say yes to something they were supposed to.  When the insurance company finds out, and they generally do the first time a major claim comes in, they’ll make the decision if that omission of information would have caused them to deny coverage to the client in the first place or not.  If not, they’ll just pay the claim and say nothing.  If yes, the client will get a very nice phone call from a claims manager from the insurance company asking why this information wasn’t provided at the time of the application, and if they don’t get the answers they like, your claim is denied, all your money is refunded, and your policy is canceled.  That’s why it is important to tell the insurance company everything they ask for, and that’s also why they usually double-check with you in a few days, to make sure you didn’t forget anything.  Usually, these horror stories about insurance companies denying claims for legitimate medical expenses on people with privately purchased major medical insurance is due to lapses in memory.  It is ultimately the client’s responsibility to make sure the answers to the questions being asked are factual.

Agent fraud is another matter.  I’m sorry to say it still exists, but most of the time it is committed by either the old timers who haven’t kept up with how their own field is changing, people just starting out, or those I call the “part timers.”  The part timers are people who are other professionals like bank employees, accountants, realtors, or primarily in other occupations who just use health insurance as an add-on for some extra cash but don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to the product.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of part timers who are a credit to the profession.  But when I see fraud perpetrated by an agent, a lot of times, I see it is by a person who primarily provides a different service and sells insurance on the side.  For your information, it is comically easy to get a license to sell insurance in almost any state.  It is just as difficult to get a driver’s license as it is to get an insurance license.  Which means it ain’t too hard.  Getting licensed is only the first step.  The people who actually take the time to learn their craft, keep up with the industry, and better their knowledge of the field are the ones you want to do business with.  And that kind of knowledge doesn’t come from simply getting licensed.

Anyway, if an agent misrepresents the product somehow, such as lying on the application, changing some answers on the application, or telling a client that the insurance will do something that it really won’t do, it is handled much differently.  First thing that will happen is the insurance company is going to contact the agent and see what they say about it.  Then the company is going to call a bunch of that agent’s other policyholders with similar products.  If the company finds out that this agent did in fact lie, then that agent loses their license and usually criminal charges get filed.  The insurance company would usually make good on the client’s claim, even though they normally wouldn’t, and then judge whether or not to continue keeping the client or retroactively refund all premiums the client paid.  At this point, however, the state insurance department is involved and the client knows they are a victim of fraud.  All but one time that I’ve witnessed agent fraud the insurance company made good on the claim anyway.  That’s one of the reasons I do not think the insurance companies are as evil as they are made out to be.  This kind of fraud still happens, unfortunately, but it isn’t as prevalent as you think.  Usually you can tell who knows their stuff.  If they give you clear answers to direct questions, you know you’re dealing with an honest representative.  If you get a sales or marketing talk for every question you ask, watch out.

Conclusion

That’s about it for my views on health insurance from the perspective of a health insurance broker.  I hope you found these essays enlightening.  There are two things I want to add about insurance in general.

Almost all insurance, at its core, is about love of someone else.  Usually, the insured isn’t the final beneficiary of the insurance, their loved ones are.  My house insurance isn’t about the home, it is about keeping a roof over my and my wife’s heads.  My health insurance isn’t about me, it’s about making sure the bills are paid so my wife doesn’t have to worry about the quality of care I get.  I have life insurance because I love my wife and I want to make sure she’s provided for should something happen to me.  We are a little too young for long term care insurance, but that would be  because I love my wife and don’t want her to have to take care of me if I can’t take care of myself, she can just pay the professional of her choice to do it.  Keep in mind that we primarily buy insurance because it is an act of love for those we care about.  All these millions of Americans that don’t have insurance; what they really don’t have is love in their life, therefore there is no need to buy insurance.

The other thing I want to mention about insurance in general.  Last week, we were down in Columbus and stayed overnight for a convention.  When we went out to our car the next day, we discovered we were robbed.  The thief smashed in our left rear window and stole an iPod and a camera.  Strangely, they didn’t steal anything else, considering there were other more valuable things in the car we were rather perplexed.  The initial shock of the violation itself aside, neither my wife nor I feel traumatized at all over this.  We have to buy a new iPod and camera (bought an identical camera for $20 on ebay), but the expensive damage was to the car itself, since the thief also scratched up the door.  We have a small deductible we have to pay, then the insurance company said they’ll pay for the rest.  So we aren’t worried.  As a matter of fact, we weren’t even concerned.  The total bill for everything is over $1,000, but we only have to pay $250, and we aren’t even shrugging our shoulders.

That’s what insurance does for you.  It takes away our worries and concerns when a bad thing happens to you.  That’s what our auto insurance did for us.  And that’s what your health insurance will do for you.

Things You Should Know About Health Insurance by a Health Insurance Broker Part 2

The real root of the problem is the coverage from your employer!

I’m going to devote the entirety of this portion of my essay to what I believe to be the actual primary cause of health insurance issues in the United States.  From the chair I sit in, the real problem with health insurance is many of you (latest statistic: 52% of insured Americans) have health insurance coverage provided by an employer.  Let me explain….

First, a little history of employer health insurance.  Health insurance has been provided by an employer in some form since the start of the Industrial Revolution.  Most insurance back then was more along the lines of catastrophic hospital coverage and a few small specified illness insurance policies (like what is commonly sold by AFLAC today).  During the 1930’s, the government started adding favorable terms to the tax code to make it to the employer’s benefit to give health insurance to their employees.  More employers and companies started providing hospital and catastrophic coverage to their workers.  Then came World War II and the post World War II boom.  That’s when the trouble started.  Suddenly, everybody was working for someone else and attitudes towards employment started shifting.  No longer was the idea to work one job your whole life and then retire.  Soon, the most talented workers were hired away from one job and moved to another.  So employers started negotiating for better benefits to either keep the workers they had, or to hire away better workers.  They lobbied for (and won) even MORE favorable tax laws from Congress to buy health insurance for their employees, and the policies they bought their workers became what we now call comprehensive major medical insurance.  This is the state we are at now: employer coverage for health insurance is so incredibly good, that there are lots of people working at a job they might hate, or want to leave, but can’t because their health insurance is too good.  The strategy corporate owners put in place fifty years ago is successful.  The health insurance they offer is good enough to keep a competent workforce at their company even if the workers would be happier elsewhere.

Starting to see why I am saying employer coverage is the root of our problem?

OK, here’s the rest of the problem.

• You pay a premium from your employer coverage that is usually significantly reduced.  If you are over 55, you should be paying over $400 a month for your health insurance.  That’s how much most major medical insurance costs.  If you are paying $100-$150 a month, then you can bet your employer is paying the lionshare of your coverage.  And why not?  The employer gets to take a massive tax write off for insuring you.  That’s a tax benefit you could use, but instead, you get cheap insurance.  If you leave your job, you can continue your coverage for a certain amount of time through a set of laws called COBRA.  Through COBRA, you can continue your current coverage for a short period of time only if you pay 100% of the premium (that’s your share plus the employer’s contribution).  When employees get their COBRA letter, they are shocked to see how much their new premiums will be.  That’s how much your insurance always was! Now you just have to assume it yourself.
• Sick employees and their spouses drive up premiums and everyone, the worker and the employer, has to pay more because of it.  If you are a small business with 15 employees if only three of them develop cancer or serious heart conditions, then everyone’s premium takes a hike the next year.  If your employer hires someone with a seriously ill spouse then everyone’s premiums will go up.  If the employer hires a young person and then they have a new baby, then everyone’s premium will go up.  Get the idea?  Initial premiums are based on a census of all employees’ health when the new contract is taken out.  Premiums are calculated based on everyone’s health at that time.  As different employees enter the job and actual claims come in, the premiums are rapidly adjusted the first couple of years for everyone based on how much is needed to cover that one sick person’s hospital bills.  And remember, there is only one premium.  The employer  decides how much they want to pay and write off, and then sticks you with the rest of the premium (which usually cannot be written off).
• Your co-pays and deductible are usually VERY low.  A trip to the hospital doesn’t normally cost $50.  It usually costs $5,000!  Lipitor, a popular cholesterol prescription doesn’t usually cost $15, it usually costs $150!  The employer negotiated a very nice co-pay for you.  When I help people get on to Medicare Part D, they have to start caring about the retail costs of their prescriptions.  I have the unfortunate job of letting people know their $30 drug actually costs $200!  They don’t believe me at first, then we call the pharmacy together and get independent confirmation.  This isn’t actually a fault of employer coverage.  In fact, the whole point of insurance is to protect you against high costs when you need it.  But in this case, it has done too good a job.  Because medicines and treatments are so inexpensive on employer coverage, people don’t give any thought to how much the care and the drugs really cost.  As a result, they let their doctors over-medicate them, give patients a more frequent than necessary treatment plan, and overcharge the patient for services unless and until the insurance company reduces said charges.

Finally, here’s the rest of the problem: Your benefits are abnormally good.  This one annoys me.  Health insurance provided by an employer is not the same as privately purchased health insurance.  And it isn’t even the same company to company.  You’d be amazed how many people say they want Insurance Company A as private insurance because their employer coverage with that company was so good.  And then they whine when the private coverage from that company isn’t nearly as comprehensive as what they had.  Here’s why; and I’m speaking as someone who sells group health insurance.  This is how your employer coverage is created.  Remember I mentioned that census of employees and their health?  Well, that is the start of the discussion.  From there, the census is submitted to the different insurance companies.  Then the insurance companies come back with offers.  The offers are placed in front of whoever represents the company: owner, benefits coordinator, HR person, etc.  Then that person literally gets into a line by line negotiation with the insurance company representative over each and every benefit within the offer.  It is exactly the same kind negotiation you get into when you are buying a house, a used car, or some service work with a contractor.  Everything is negotiated.  After the benefit negotiation is concluded to everyone’s satisfaction, then the premium negotiation commences.  Benefits are adjusted up and down until a level of mutual satisfaction is met on both sides.  Then, a contract known as a master policy is written.  Remember that word “master policy,” because I’m going to come back to it in a moment.  It is important.  The master policy is either accepted or renegotiated by both sides until it is accepted.  Once accepted, premiums begin getting collected and insurance cards are issued.  Health insurance begins.

Now about that master policy.  This policy is the culprit for so many insurance horror stories such as the comment left in my last blog post about an insurance company not paying for a preventative care claim.  Here’s the thing with those master policies: there is a very good chance you will never see it!  Why is that important?  Because an insurance policy is literally a contract.  No more, no less.  And an insurance company will always, ALWAYS fulfill the terms outlined within the contract.  The company will never do more, and it will never do less.  Why will it never do more?  Because they build their premium structure based on every possible claim that could happen in that policy.  They leave nothing out.  Why will they never do less?  Because the insurance policy is a legal contract between parties and if they violate that contract, they WILL lose in court. I am a firm believer that insurance companies follow their policies to the letter.  I do not believe that bullshit I see on television that insurance companies love to deny a claim and only pay when they have to.  I believe they get a lot of improper claims and improperly filed claims.

What does this mean to you?  You’ve NEVER seen the master policy from your employer coverage.  They never gave you a copy  What you’ve gotten is a “certificate of benefits.”  The certificate you get each year highlights the benefits you receive.  It does not say like the policy says specifically what will and will not be paid.  It only gives you a general overview.  And yes, it is entirely possible that something you would consider a reasonable and customary health insurance expense might not be covered under the terms of the master policy.  Even if this is something that would be covered by a privately purchased health insurance policy. Depending on the state, the employers might not be required to show you the master policy.  It depends on the rules of the state the master policy is written in (notice I did not say “the state you live in”).

If you have ever seen a privately purchased major medical policy, you know that there are at least twenty pages of things they will and will not cover.  Leaving out the very real probability that most people are not going to take the time and read their policies, every individual purchaser of major medical insurance has in their hands exactly what will and will not be covered.  Typically, people who privately purchase their major medical insurance do not have similar problems; either pulling out their policies or contacting their agent before a major claim goes in to confirm the policy will pay up on that claim.  Because employees never get that detailed information, problems start cropping up.  Claims are denied, procedures aren’t covered, co-pays are higher than expected.  These are all issues that people do not know about because they are never told what their benefits are.  It is not that insurance companies are not covering people, it is that people are getting care and trying to get the insurance companies to pay for services that the insurance company never agreed to provide in the first place.

And that, my friends, is why you have problems with health insurance.

In my final segment, I’ll discuss pre-existing conditions, claims filing, and more on the real cost of health care.  And if anyone has a problem with what I am saying, keep in mind that I am writing this from the side of a health insurance broker, someone who is at the table when the employers and insurance companies put these plans together.  I am not speaking as the employee who has to live with the final result.  There is enough being said about those results in other places.  I’m keeping my emotions out of this and relating actual experiences I’ve had from getting these plans in place.

Things You Should Know About Health Insurance by a Health Insurance Broker Part 1

My day job is working in insurance.  Specifically, health insurance.  More specifically, I primarily work by selling and discussing options for people about to turn 65 and go onto Medicare.  You know Medicare, right?  Medicare is that federally run health insurance program that America already has.  You know, that thing everyone else is afraid of getting?

Anyway, when the discussion first began regarding health insurance reform, I was all for it.  I thought, “this is a good thing.  I’m involved with it on a daily basis and it really does need to be reformed.”  And then, as details from the White House came out about what they’re trying to do I started thinking there might be some problems here.  So far, my problems have to do with our executive, not our legislative branch of government.  I’m a little relieved, since the executive doesn’t actually make laws, but Obama sure can make news, right?  Obama, just this past week, was screaming that insurance companies are holding U.S. citizens hostage.  And he is also consistently painting the insurance companies as the evil villains in this country.  One of his early proposals had written in that insurance agents were not to be allowed into the discussion of health insurance options with individuals!  WTF!  I know there’s a huge stereotype about insurance agents out there, but I gotta say, as one of them, our work is essential.  You really don’t need me to buy any of your insurance.  But the reason lots of people use me is because my obligation isn’t to sell you something; it is to make sure the product I sell you works the way you need it to, when you need it to.  Just like real estate.  Of course you can sell your home by yourself.  Lots of people do, but there are still real estate agents out there.  Why?  Because we can’t do as good a job as they can buying and selling our homes.  My job is exactly the same as that.  Anyway, thanks to the fine advocacy of folks like NAIFA, that stipulation is out of all major proposals again and Americans have the option of dealing with their health insurance through insurance agents.

There is still so much misinformation about health insurance and health insurance companies that I thought I would tell you some things I have learned during my nearly seven years in that business.

1. Health insurance will not begin to pay starting at the first dollar. Except for one or two rather costly options, no insurance of any type will begin paying at the very first dollar.  You will either have a deductible or a co-pay before insurance will begin paying.  Why, you might ask?  Because if it doesn’t cost you anything except a premium, then everybody will be going out and have everything done to them without a care about the actual costs.  Don’t need a full body scan but want one?  If insurance pays 100%, most people will go, “what the hell, doesn’t cost me anything.”  But if that $7,000 procedure costs you $100 and the insurance company $6,900, then you’ll stop a moment and think if you really want or need it done.
2. It doesn’t cost you only $15 now, that’s just what your insurance company is making you pay. One of the most frustrating aspects of my job is explaining to people how much their prescriptions cost when they are coming off of employer coverage.  Lipitor, one of the most popular drugs in America, actually costs over $100 for a 30 day supply.  But with their employer coverage, it cost them maybe $10.  However, if they go onto Medicare and need Medicare Part D, they could still have a $10 copay, until they reach their coverage gap, then they pay the full price.  It is the same with a doctor office visit.  It may cost you $10 for a doctor visit on your insurance, but it will cost you $150 for that same doctor visit if you don’t have insurance.  What does that mean?  The doctor visit costs $150.  Your insurance company simply pays $140 of it.  Sort of puts that evil insurance company in a different perspective, doesn’t it?  Which brings me to my next point:
3. You don’t need insurance for a doctor’s visit. If you see your doctor once a year for a routine physical and that’s all, you don’t really need insurance that year, do you?  You paid out an assload more money in premiums for that insurance than they paid out for you.  Guess what, you don’t need that auto insurance because you didn’t have that accident.  You don’t need that life insurance because you are still alive.  You don’t need that fire insurance because your house didn’t burn down.  You want to know a secret?  You can’t get any of those insurances after the fact.  Once you become sick, you can’t get health insurance.  Doctor tells you that you are terminal?  You aren’t gonna get life insurance.  Your car just get hit by an uninsured drunk driver?  Sorry, no insurance company is going to sell you auto insurance for that accident.  My point is, if I tell you that you need health insurance and you just say you don’t need it because you just go to a doctor once a year, my response is, “that’s great!  Insurance will never be cheaper or easier to get than it is right now.”  You can’t get this stuff when you need it.  You have to get it early, and then use it when you need it.  Along that same line, do not be bashful about using your insurance if it is for something you need.  You paid your premium.  If it is necessary, don’t think twice about using that insurance card you’ve got.
4. Underwriting is your friend. Not everybody knows what underwriting means.  Here is a definition from Wikipedia.  “Underwriting refers to the process that a large financial service provider (bank, insurer, investment house) uses to assess the eligibility of a customer to receive their products (equity capital, insurance, mortgage or credit).”  What that means is that if you want health insurance, the company is going to check your medical background and see if you are an acceptable risk.  An acceptable risk means the insurance company looks to see if it won’t be paying out a high amount of claims for you based on your health at that moment, in their estimation.  There is a term in insurance called adverse selection.  What that means is, it is human nature to think about buying insurance of any type right before you need it and not having it when you don’t.  However, insurance is always a bargain when you need it.  If you pay out $10,000 in health insurance premiums (a bit above average cost) and you become sick, the insurance company will easily be paying out $100,000 to get you better (a bit below average cost).  If they give insurance to everyone right before they become sick, how many people do you think the insurance company can pay for before the it goes bankrupt?  Insurance needs healthy people that pay premiums but put in no claims for awhile so they can pay for the sick people.  I don’t want my insurance company to take all comers, because if they do, they won’t have enough in the bank to pay out a claim when I need them to.  I also want

   them to post high profits.  If they post high profits, they can afford to pay my high claims when I need them to.  This isn’t me talking as an insurance agent here, this is me talking as a man who cares about his health insurance.  This is sort of why I don’t understand Obama’s message that he’ll force insurance companies to take everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.

In the next segment, I’ll go over claims, that comment I made about pre-existing conditions, more about the actual cost of health care, and how employer coverage is actually the culprit that is causing most of the health insurance problems we see today, not the insurance company.

An Author’s Unfinished Works

While I embark on my latest adventure in reading books to better my education, I am noticing a rather new occurrence in non-fiction that is find of disturbing me. What brings the idea for this post to mind is this problem just surfaced again in the latest book I just finished. The problem is, the author’s book is not complete.

Allow me to explain…..

I just finished reading The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness by Stephen Covey.  This book is a followup to a somewhat older book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, written, I believe, in 1989.  That was a phenomenal book.  It really opened my eyes to a number of aspects about my own character and I strongly recommend everyone consider picking up a copy.  So I immediately went and picked up the followup book, The 8th Habit.  Again, content was great.  There was some great ideas in it and the book got me to think about some attitude adjustments I can make in my own life (read: become a better person).  In fact, these two books are probably going to be part of my annual must-reads along with Napoleon Hill’s works.  However, there was something in The 8th Habit that kind of disturbed me.  This is something I also noticed in some other recently purchased books:

There are footnotes throughout these books that tell you “for more information, visit [the book's website],” and they list the URL for you to go to.

What the hell?  I just bought your book.  I just paid between $12.00 and $26.00 to buy your book (I make it a practice to seek out the hardcover editions of books that I feel I will find value with).  Why do you want me to go to a website to get the rest of the information that I just bought your book for?!  Isn’t that why I bought your book?  As a matter of fact, isn’t a book one of the last types of ways to communicate to the masses where you can get your message out to anyone without size constraints?  You’ve only got so much space in a magazine or a newspaper.  You’ve only got so much time on TV or on radio.  A computer program can only be so big.  That leaves the internet and blogs like this, and a book as the only means of delivering unlimited content to your public.  So why did you cut me short?

I recognize books have bibliographies, footnotes, endnotes, credits, acknowledgments, forwards, introductions, endnotes, summaries, indexes, and illustrations.  So why can’t they include these last few bits of information?  Yes, I do understand that if you want to give your readers timely updates, you cannot do that in a book without releasing a new edition; once it is printed, that is it.  But the whole point of Dr. Covey’s book is it is supposed to be timeless lessons for character development!  There is nothing new!  And to make this even funnier, this book has EIGHT APPENDIXES!  He went that far, he couldn’t take it a couple of steps further and show the rest of his work?

Before going on, let me tell you which three books I own that I’ve noticed this recent trend in.  Keep in mind, I actually recommend everybody read these.  The information is good, the lessons are worthwhile.   So get these at your local library instead before buying them.  Judge for yourself if you think these books are worth purchasing.

The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness by Stephen Covey

Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever by Ray Kurtzweil and Terry Grossman

More Natural Cures Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products That Cure Disease by Kevin Trudeau

The 8th Habit book wants you to go to the8thhabit.com.  Fantastic Voyage wants you to go to fantastic-voyage.net, and the Natural Cures book wants you to go to naturalcures.com.  What offended me most about having to go to the8thhabit.com is they won’t even give you the information they tell you they will unless you register with them!  Again, let me reemphasize the point of this post: I bought the book.  I paid for the author’s information and he withholds some of that information unless I register on his website.  And the biggest irony here is that the book is about becoming more effective as a person both personally and professionally.  The book seems to fall short in that respect.

Fantastic Voyage I can sort of understand them linking to a website.  It is written by a futurist who is writing his hypothesis about extending human life based on what we know of current technology trends.  Those trends will change.  I understand directing us to a special site if he wants to keep us updated, he does just that.  In every chapter, there’s a note, “for more information, go to [the book site] for …” The site is free and anyone can read what’s there by clicking the link without divulging your personal information.  That’s fair enough for me.

Natural Cures is the most honest of the three books; however it still has no excuse.  You must pay for a membership if you want to use the site.  It says this in the book, you are made aware of it several times throughout its reading.  I appreciate the honesty.  I appreciate the warning.  However, I already paid, remember?  I bought your book! It’s great information, and the back even has a nice directory of other sites you can link to for buying some of the remedies mentioned in the book.  That’s exactly the type of information I’ve paid for!  But as with Fantastic Voyage, every chapter has a line, “for more information, go to our website,” to read the specifics of a certain malady.  That’s not acceptable to me.  I want this information in your book and on my bookshelf for easy reference.  And like The 8th Habit, the author of More Natural Cures states that these are time-tested, proven remedies.  If that is true, that means that the actual remedies do not fluctuate, so you could put that information in the book and give me my money’s worth, rather than try to get me to purchase your book, then purchase your membership to the accompanying website.

I am rather disturbed by this trend.  The original 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was written in 1989.  The world wide web became available and accessible in 1993.  That means, that when Dr. Covey wrote his original book, everything he had to say and wanted to say had to be placed in the book at the time he wrote it.  I have to wonder, would the book have been as successful and as influential if 10% of it had a “for more information, go to 7habits.com” footnote scattered throughout the book?  If this is a new trend in books, I am disappointed.  In our society, we want to get as much as we can for as little as possible.  Books are one of the few ways we can get an $80,000 education for less than $50.  If we start considering it to be acceptable behavior for an author to get away with publishing an incomplete book, then rounding up our email addresses if we want to complete the book, and still charge us a full book price for it, then we really have a serious problem in book publishing.  Books are supposed to be timeless.  A few months ago, I finished reading a book that has a copyright date on it of 1939.  This year, that means the book is exactly seventy years old.  That’s okay.  A seventy year old book can be just as worthwhile as a book that was published last week.  But say I go back to The 8th Habit seventy years from now (yeah, I know.  I’ll be 102 years old.  Shut up, it could happen.  My grandmother is exactly 100 and healthier than you are).  Do you really think that footnote of “see www.the8thhabit.com” will be of any value to me in the year 2079?  That footnote is placed under examples of relevant text.  If I want to take the knowledge in the book seriously, I want the associated content, as anyone would if they are taking a scholarly approach to reading this book.  So Dr. Covey just brought irrelevancy to his own “timeless” classic!  Why?  Because seventy years from now, I am 100% sure the web won’t exist the way it does today.  URL’s aren’t going to work way they do today, assuming URL’s are still the means of directing computers to a specific site.  And in the very off-chance that they still are, do you really think the fine folks at FranklinCovey, Inc. are going to maintain a seventy year old web page?  I think not!

The written word is one of only three timeless ways I know of to pass on history where they can be experienced by future generations without a need for technology to decipher the media for us (the other two being paintings/pictures, and the LP).  If we start connecting the internet, a constantly evolving technology, to one of these timeless archival formats, we risk having our knowledge fade with the passage of time.  And where computers are concerned, old technologies become obscure very fast.  When was the last time you worked with an eight inch floppy disk?

Random Thoughts

As I’ve said earlier, I own an Amazon Kindle.  I love it, I think its great.  So I am a little perplexed with the number of complaints people are giving right now about Amazon pulling George Orwell’s content from the Kindle because they accidentally sold an illegal copy of it.  People are all up in arms, “Amazon invaded my privacy!  Amazon did the equivalent of breaking into my house and stole my stuff!  DRM sucks!”  And then, of course, there’s my favorite, “this just goes to show you why I’ll never buy a Kindle.”  Bullshit.  Everyone who had the books removed got their money back, and they CAN still buy the book, but the legal copy costs more than the illegal copy did (of course).  What are people up in arms about?  CD copying is treated very differently than LP copying.  You used to be able to make copies of LPs onto cassettes for personal use whenever you wanted to.  Why?  Because the cassette copy sucked compared with the LP.  However, because CD’s are digital copies, you make a copy, your copy is identical to the original.  So obviously CD copying is going to be treated differently.  Expect books to work the same way.  Sure, publishers need to get on the ball and realize digital distribution should mean vastly reduced prices on books, but the general population should also realize that SOME of the rules about digital distribution need to be revised.  A day later, and I’ve finally found at least ONE blogger who made some sense about the whole mess.  And frankly, if there was any one company that deserves and has earned our trust, it’s Amazon.com.

I’m not absolutely thrilled with 100% of everything Barack Obama is doing as president, but I still have a high amount of confidence that we put the right guy in the White House compared to the alternative (still not as against McCain as I am against Palin).  I’m not really happy about the fact that he’s trying to exclude insurance agents from his Health Insurance reform act.  On the surface, this seems like a great idea.  Why, because of the stereotype everyone has about their insurance agent.  The agent is bad.  Well, as a health insurance agent, I can tell you that what we are really hired to do is make sure clients get what they ask for and to break down all the knowledge that is available and make it easy for the client to understand.  As an example, everything everyone needs to know about Medicare is publicly available.  But most people aren’t going to give it the research it needs to be given.  And those that do, don’t know what choice to make because of both the similarities and the differences between the companies.  If we are excluded from the conversation, I foresee a massive amount of problems, consumer mistrust of the new plan, and people being enrolled in plans that are not suitable to their needs.  You are going to find corruption in every job and at every level, but you can’t remove an entire occupation due to the actions of a few bad apples.

Do you want to piss me off when I walk in to your retail store?  Stop me the moment I walk in and ask me what you can help me find.  I just walked in!  Make yourself available to me after I’ve walked around.  The prevailing trend among retail shops is to get the customer in, find them what they need, and get them the hell out as fast as they can.  And you wonder why retail sales are in a slump!  Grocery stores have it right: they don’t help you unless you ask for it, and they put all the goodies between you and the real food (or what passes for a lot of real food these days).  So you walk in to a grocery store and need milk, cheese, and sirloin.  You walk out with milk, cheese, sirloin, Ding Dongs, a 12 pack of Pepsi, six types of tomato sauce, and a large drum of Slim Jims.  That’s called browsing.  If you escort me from the front door to the product, and then over to the checkout, I ain’t going to purchase anything else.

Can anyone explain to me why Microsoft is trying to go after the music or the browser search market?  They have a 95% market share in computer operating systems, and they didn’t get the last one right.  What do they feel they even need anything else for?  For that matter, why do they feel they need to bother countering Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads?  When you have 95%, you can just laugh that crap off.  And here’s the thing, Apple doesn’t even have the other 5%!  They actually have something like 3%, with Linux and the other OS’s sharing the other 2%.  Why does Microsoft even care?  Apple is a great example of how to act in a market they dominate.  They have something like 90% share of the music market.  You know how they reacted to the Microsoft Zune, the RealPlayer, and the glut of all the other mp3 players on the market?  They ignored them all and just kept on refining their own music player however they wanted to!  That’s how you act when you dominate a market.  You continue to out-innovate the competition.  Can someone actually tell me that Vista out innovated OSX or even Ubuntu?  Hell no.  Microsoft has a good thing going.  Hell, include the XBox and they’ve got about a third of the video game market as well.  Microsoft should just keep being Microsoft, make Windows the greatest OS on the planet (read: make their OS accessible and easy for the lay person, NOT the IT tech guy), and maybe make their game systems more fun.  Why do they care about the search market?  Or about opening up a Microsoft Store to compete with Apple’s stores?  Do I try to compete with a housefly for dominance of my house?

If you are under the age of forty and you want to know how to succeed in life, I have a suggestion: learn to be decisive.  For some reason, Americans have it ingrained in their culture that we can put stuff off until it MUST be taken care of.  People that know me know that I can’t stand others who can’t make decisions once all the relevant information is given.  You have the facts, you have the pros, you have the cons.  Now DECIDE!  When someone says to me, “I’ll think about it,” what they’ve really done is they have just sang the Loser’s National Anthem.  The primary sign of being a responsible adult is a person who makes decisions once they have all the information; does not second guess themselves, and then deals with the consequences if any come up.  You can always tell who is a winner in life and who is a loser based on how they make decisions.  There is nothing wrong with putting a decision off until all the necessary data is collected.  But there is a LOT wrong with putting things off to “think about it.”  When people say that to me when I’m working, what they are really saying is, “no, I’m going to go with someone else.”  Or they’ll do it themselves but don’t have the balls to tell me that.  But most don’t have the courage to say that to my face.  Why?  What do you think I’ll do?  Am I going to break down and cry in front of you?  And what if I did?  So the hell what!  The truth is, I can handle rejection a lot better than you can.  I get rejected several times a day in my job.  You know something?  Ten minutes after I leave your house, I’ll forget all about you.  I won’t remember your name, I won’t remember your face.  I tend to take the time and effort to only remember my clients.  So feel free to treat me with respect when I’m in your home.  I didn’t lie to you, so don’t lie to me.  Tell me, “no thank you,” and I’ll be off to see someone else.  For more information about the benefits of making decisions, read Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude.

I’ll have more to say on this later, but I am really enjoying having my own personal bibliography.  I feel as if, for the first time in my life, I have a real, well-thought-out direction for self-education.  Don’t want to say more about it now, but I’ve spent over 32 hours researching and compiling this reading list.  I’m quite proud of the results.  I highly recommend everybody puts one together.  You will be amazed what a love for learning you’ll develop when you plot this out on paper.

Happy anniversary to me.  Last week was the one year anniversary of Intercontinental Ballistic Discourse.  This will mark the 81st post.  I try, although I don’t always succeed, to make at least one post a week.  It looks like I was able to keep that average up throughout the year.  There has been a total of 2,800 views to this site since I started it.  That’s pretty low in terms of total internet usage, but for one schmuck who is unknown by the blogosphere and just posts about once a week for fun and as an outlet for creative expression, it is pretty good.  The most searched term on this site is “villian,” probably in reference to my satirical post about Clippy, and tied for second place is “crystal Pepsi” and “Bricklin” both from the same Thanksgiving post about Turkeys.   And I still don’t know why, but there are three dozen views on my blog because people have actually Googled “Burt+Ward+Penis.”  I don’t understand either.  Especially since I’ve never actually made comment one way or another about Burt Ward’s penis!  Anyway … I’ve kept up this blog for a year and I plan to keep it up even longer.  Posting on it is part of my weekly schedule.  This site is a nice venting outlet for me, even if no one is reading.  So if you are one of my regulars, thank you very much; please continue reading, and tell your friends.