Healthcare

While the ACA (Obamacare) was a good effort towards expanding healthcare coverage, it did little to address the actual cost of providing healthcare, or what is paid for healthcare. While I could write hundreds of pages on the subject, I’ll stick to a personal example of the ridiculous inefficiency of Express Scripts.

We are fortunate to both have healthcare coverage through our jobs, and I also have coverage through my military retirement, and all three use Express Scripts for prescription drug coverage, so we thought we were set, especially since Tricare covers 100% of the cost of generics purchased through the Express Scripts mail order pharmacy. Unfortunately, one of our employers has a $25 co-pay for this same category, and after two lengthy phone calls with Express Scripts, it was clear that one part of Express Scripts was absolutely incapable of coordinating payments with another part of Express Scripts, and that we would have to pay the $25 co-pay and then submit a reimbursement request to Express Scripts, which I did, only to have it returned because I had apparently included the wrong documentation (the bill that they had sent us). Instead, I had to go to their web site, print out “electronically generated pharmacy receipts that match the entries on the claims and balances printout”. Aaaahhhhhh!  I printed 3 different things from their web site hoping that one of them is what they are looking for. The only way that I can justify the time spent on this is the principal. We are done with their supposedly efficient mail order pharmacy and will just eat the $1.25 co-pay at the local pharmacy.

And whatever Trump(don’t)care ends up being, there is no indication that it will address systemic issues such as billing either. Bring on single payer, please.

The Firing of Directory Comey

So here is my take on the firing of Director Comey. First some of his more public statements and actions:

1) Refusing to indict Hillary Clinton for violation of 18 U.S.C. 793f because it had rarely been applied in the last century. Well, one would think that gross negligence in the handling of classified material would be rare, and by failing to charge Mrs. Clinton, he ensured that it would remain rarely utilized. A competent prosecutor could have made a very strong case that she was guilty of gross negligence, and the case should have gone to a jury. Instead, she clearly got preferential treatment.

*And for those not familiar, here is what 18 U.S.C. 793 (f) says:

Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

2) Informing Congress 11 days prior to the election that he was reopening the Clinton email investigation, but not mentioning any investigation of Russian meddling in the election and possible Trump campaign connections was egregious. If one investigation is going to be announced prior to the election, why not the other? (And the timing was such that neither should have been.) This announcement clearly favored Trump, who praised Comey for it.

3) Agreeing to have dinner at the White House with Trump. Huh? The FBI director is supposed to be independent. Wow, was that bad judgment. (I wonder if they both have tapes, but even the mention of tapes is too Nixonian.)

So, having said that, it would be difficult to claim that I am either a Hillary supporter or Comey supporter, and if Obama had fired Comey shortly before leaving office and left the position for Trump to fill, I doubt that many would have complained.

However, President Trump’s firing of Comey is as egregious as Comey’s actions. Trump praised Comey over re-opening the Clinton investigation and then fires him 3 months after taking office? Sure, Comey may be incompetent and a showboat, but competency clearly isn’t a requirement to serve in the Trump administration. No, the firing screams interference in the Russian investigation, and since a more plausible explanation wasn’t forthcoming, there is no reason to believe otherwise. Those enabling his behavior for their own gains are as guilty as Trump is. Since there is no reason to trust his enablers, bring on the Special Prosecutor.