Hold the Hype

The Democratic leadership in the Senate unveiled their health care bill on Wednesday: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  With a name like that, what's not to like.  Who doesn't want to protect patients?  Who doesn't want affordable care?

In my quest to know more about the bill, I'm steering clear of the radio, TV and blogs.  Tomorrow morning will find my radio fixed firmly on the sports talk stations.  I'm not quite ready to be inundated by punditry from the left and right.  

Still, I want to know what the bill contains.  Until about an hour ago, everything I knew about the bill I had learned from NPR.  It will reduce the deficit by $130 billion.  It is 2000 pages long.  There aren't enough votes yet (60) to bring it up for debate.  I needed more, so I turned to the New York Times for an (unhelpful) overview and have been perusing the analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Here's what gets me after a quick read.  

The headlines and proponents will be touting the fact that the bill saves taxpayers money by reducing the deficit $130 billion over the next ten years.  That makes it sound like the government will be reducing its spending on health care during that time.  Not quite.  According to the CBO, the net effect is $130 billion, but the bill achieves that effect by raising $149 billion from an excise tax on high-premium insurance plans, $223 billion in revenue from other tax provisions and $15 billion in revenue from certain provisions affecting Medicare, Medicaid and other programs.  In other words, the government is going to raise $377 billion in new revenues in order to reduce the deficit by $130 billion.  That revenue isn't free.  Somebody pays for it.

Something else about the deficit saving argument seems fishy to me as well.  While I don't have all the details on when various provisions of the bill will take effect, the bulk of the deficit reduction occurs before the creation of insurance exchanges in 2014.  In fact, the net effect of the bill over the last four years will be to increase the federal budget deficit by $18 billion.  That assumes the government can realize $42 billion in off-budget savings from Social Security, the postal service and other programs.

The CBO analysis does not include all of the costs that will result if the bill passes.  For example, the analysis suggests it will cost the IRS and Health and Human Services another $10-$20 billion to implement the changes in the bill, but those costs are not part of the overall analysis.

It sounds to me like the bill's proponents can only claim the reduction in the deficit by raising taxes early, delaying the benefits and ignoring some of the costs.

The budget deficit is only one part of the equation.  What about the direct costs for taxpayers and other organizations?  Will this bill actually reduce the amount of money we spend as a society on health care?  What about my overall healthcare bill?  Will it decrease?  Will I receive better care?

The CBO doesn't say.  "At this point the agency has not assessed the net effect of the current legislation on [national health expenditures], either within the 10-year budget window or for the subsequent decade."  The closest the CBO comes to assessing the impact outside the federal government is to say that unfunded mandates will "greatly exceed" $1.39 billion for the private sector and $690 million for state, local and tribal governments.  That's not saying much.  I could have guessed as much.

The only real societal benefit the CBO can point to is that the percentage of "legal nonelderly residents" with insurance coverage will increase from 83% to 94%.  That's an improvement, but is the legislation a good way to go about achieving those results?

Overall, I'm not encouraged by the bill.  There are other provisions I don't like and I have some issues with the basic approach in some ares, but I'll save those topics for another time.  It isn't that I'm opposed to legislation to reform our health care system.  I believe we should treat health as a public good in much the same way we think of national defense or our transportation infrastructure.  Without the information to understand the real costs of the legislation, though, how can I judge whether it is worth the benefit?  I don't support our representatives passing another bill just for the sake of doing something.  

We should hold the hype until we have a few more facts.

I can do this

I'm cranky. Maybe it's because I'm in an airport for the seventh time in two weeks and I still have one more airport to go tonight. Maybe it's because I nearly missed my third flight in those same two weeks. Maybe it's because I gave myself a full two hours to make the 30-minute trek from my office to the airport, but it took me 90 minutes instead thanks to Seattle's fabulous new light rail system. Maybe it's because the lines to clear security were nine miles long and I had to be screened twice because of the mysteriously dangerous-looking fresh zucchini in my bag (which I had picked that morning from our garden). Maybe it's because I was a sweaty mess by the time I sprinted from one end of the airport to the other in just enough time to make my flight.

Then again... I did make my flight afterall and that's something to be thankful for. Plus, the seat next to me was empty and I had a spectacular view of the Cascades. And we did take a flight path that flew us almost directly over the top of Mt. Rainier. I guess it wasn't all bad.

I can conquer this. I can hold out until my connecting flight touches down in Elko in a few short hours and Thelma is there to meet me. When thoughts of idiotic politicians or wasteful spending or the fruitlessness of looking for genuine leather bound scriptures in large print without tabs creep back into my head, that's when I'll just close my eyes, think of Thelma and dream of wildflowers, waves, rivers and standing in the rain with no umbrella.

Peace. I can do this.

If you're like me...

Oh what do you do in the summertime, when all your family leaves? When boredom sets in? When you can't stand to look at another Kakuro puzzle or watch another minute of basic cable? When you've read the online edition of the Economist from cover to virtual cover?

Well, if you're anything like me, you wonder why the packaging for the Safeway Select™ Supreme Pizza shows 13 black olives on the pizza while the actual pizza cooking in your oven right now has 44 olives on it (not counting the 17 that you already put down the garbage disposal). Or, if you're like me, you spend a few minutes while writing a blog post trying to figure out how to type the ™ symbol. It's Option-2 on a Mac keyboard in case you're wondering.

Perhaps you spend countless minutes each evening positioning and repositioning the sprinklers in your yard in the hope that sprinkler configuration #429 will finally be The One that gets it just right. Or maybe you'll amuse yourself by saying silently in your best imitation of your former mission companion from Idaho that you need to "move pipe" when it comes time to move the sprinkler. If you do, and you're like me, you'll feel a pang of loneliness when you wish that your wife was here to not laugh at your joke.

If you're particularly bored, you'll notice the detour sign for the closure of Cascadian Way between 140th ST SE and 138th PL SE and you'll enter a minor mental frenzy when you realize that 138th PL SE invalidates your emerging theory for how streets are named in Snohomish County. You'll then scour the county website until you find Chapter 13.120 of the county code which describes the official street numbering system. You'll bang your head against your parents' glass coffee table when you read that any east-west road lying between designated streets shall be called "place" except in the southwest quadrant of the county where any north-south street lying between designated streets shall be called place west.

When you regain consciousness, if you're anything like me, you'll sit on the grass for twenty minutes waiting for the humming birds to come back so you can take their picture in the flower garden. After 15 minutes the batteries on your camera will give out. For the next five minutes, perhaps as an after effect of your encounter with the coffee table, you'll convince yourself that you can see the hummingbirds sitting in the large cherry tree across the street. Oh yeah, and the humming birds will be pointing at you and laughing.

Maybe, if you're really bored, you'll stare blankly at your blog post trying to think of the perfect punch line for the nascent joke forming in your head about an artesian spring and curbside recycling.

If you're smart, though, you'll just shut off the sprinkler and go to bed.

If you're going to San Francisco...

It seemed like an easy enough task when I planned it yesterday.  Fly from Seattle to San Francisco before breakfast.  Spend the day in San Francisco meeting with a client.  Slip across the bay to Oakland in the late afternoon.  Fly from Oakland back to Seattle and be home just in time for reading the scriptures and family prayer.  A perfect plan for an experienced traveler familiar with the Bay Area.  Sure, it would have been easier to fly down last night, but that would have meant less time with Thelma.  Besides, Braeden and I had finally managed to get a home teaching appointment with a new couple in our ward and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity.

Simple?  Yes.  Doable?  Of course.  Doomed to failure and misery?  Apparently.

I should have seen it coming when my alarm went off at 4:15 this morning.  Nothing good happens before 6 AM.  Nothing enjoyable happens before 7:30.  Case in point:  at 6 AM I was staring longingly out the window next to Gate N16 as my flight to San Francisco backed away from the terminal.  It wasn’t my fault!  How could this be happening?  I’m not easily rebuffed.  For a moment I contemplated bursting through the security door, running onto the tarmac, climbing up the landing gear in to baggage cabin and breaking my way through that special spot in the floor just inside the rear galley.  I saw it on a movie once, I think.  I was pretty sure I could pull it off.

But, I’m wearing a new shirt today and I want to go at least 24 hours without getting it dirty with ketchup or hydraulic fluid or some such.  So, instead, I decided to sulk in the United lounge and drown my sorrow in a complimentary Diet Coke.  I should have seen it coming.  When it’s too early for breakfast but you’ve already downed a Diet Coke, you’re in for a bad day.

I stirred my drink and released my aggression by repeatedly bashing a defenseless piece of ice with a plastic straw.  Who to blame?  

Maybe I should blame the United kiosk that wouldn’t print my boarding pass in the ticketing hall.  Maybe I should blame the gaggle of agents that wouldn’t help me.  (I’m in the First Class line!  I’m looking executive!  Doesn’t that merit some attention?  Sure, I didn’t have a First Class ticket, but they didn’t know that.)  

By the time someone came to look at the machine and the problem was sorted out, I was denied boarding because it was too close to take off.  The kiosk wouldn’t print the boarding pass even though I was already checked into the flight.  I was ticked off.  I tried to reason with the agent that I had already checked in, I just needed the pass.  I knew I had a copy on my laptop.  Maybe she could give me access to a printer and I could print my own.  No luck.  “It” wouldn’t let her print me a copy, whatever “it” was.  I hate it.  It gives me nothing but trouble.

The agent told me that I would have to get on standby for the next flight but then left without telling me how to do that.  I finally found someone else who could help me and printed a standby pass for me.  They told me that if I hurried to my original flight with the standby ticket, I might still be able to get on.  Unfortunately, I got backed up behind TSA Agent Mr. Friendly who took forever to verify the identity of each person as he mockingly acted as though he had some special gift that required great strain and concentration to match the face of the person standing in front of him to the picture on their ID.  Give me a break!  How hard is this!

By the time I got to the gate... Well, you know that part of the story already.  Lounge.  Diet Coke.  Suppressed rage.  Is it really only 6:30?

About 30 minutes before the departure time for the next flight I made my way to the gate to thankfully discover that I had a spot.  I had even been upgraded to an “economy plus” seat on the aisle thanks to my frequent flyer status on a partner airline.  That meant I had enough leg room to lower the tray in front of me and get some work done while en route.  Things were looking up.  The flight was smooth.  We landed a little early.  I made it easily out of the terminal to the airport BART station.  I existed the BART at the Montgomery Street Station and was greeted by the cool, misty ocean air that makes me love San Francisco so much.

Sure, I arrived at my destination an hour late, but everyone else was running late as well and was thankful for the excuse.  There were French pastries for breakfast.  (I had the pain au chocolat.)  The morning meetings went well.  We had lunch later at a small French restaurant, Café Claude, in a decorative back alley.  (I had the the onion soup with a perfect Gruyère cheese crust as a starter, the pork tenderloin sandwich for my main course and Tarte Tatin, up upside-down carmel apple tart, for desert.)  As I walked back to the office bathed in the warm summer sun, I marveled once again at the miracle of modern travel that allows me to have a horrible, cranky morning in Seattle and a splendid afternoon in San Francisco.

I should have known it would be too good to last.

I left the office in plenty of time to make my early evening flight out of Oakland.  I could have taken a later flight out of San Francisco, but I wanted to get home as early as possible to spend time with my family, so I opted for an earlier flight  out of Oakland on Alaska Airlines.  I opted wrong.  The BART should have taken 20 minutes from the Montgomery Street Station to the Coliseum/Oakland Airport Station.  It took 40 minutes.  The AirBART bus transfer to the airport should have taken another 15-25 minutes.  It took 45 minutes.  I should have been on the 6:05 flight out of Oakland.  It took off without me.

I finally got off the bus and rushed to the Alaska ticket counter to find the place nearly empty.  That’s never a good sign.  My flight was long gone.  There were no more flights to Seattle out of the airport that night.  I could either wait until the next day or try to make it to San Jose in hopes of getting on the standby list for a 7:50 flight to Seattle that still had a few open seats.  I rushed out of the airport, found a shuttle bus that could take me directly to the San Jose airport for a hefty price and trusted my person to a newly immigrated driver, a GPS device and the California highway system.  I got to the airport just in time to get one of the two remaining seats and drown my sorrows in a pair or Whopper Juniors from Burger King.  So much for the fine dining of earlier in the day.  Sure, I had the French fries, but it wasn’t the same.

It was about 10 o’clock when I called Thelma and told her that I was finally in Seattle, I was almost to my car, traffic shouldn’t be bad that time of night and I would be home in about 35 minutes.  True, false, false and false.  The fatigue must have been setting in, because I staggered around the parking garage for about 15 minutes trying to remember where I parked my car.   I found it, eventually, but also found my way into one traffic jam after another on the way home as various sections of freeway were closed down for evening maintenance.  At 11:15 or so I finally pulled into the my driveway.

I stumbled into the house and into Thelma’s open arms.  For a moment, the world was right again.  Then I remembered:  I’m driving to Boise in the morning and I haven’t packed.

Dear Thelma,

(Here's my response to Thelma's moment of irrationality.)

Of course it will fit.  All of it.  Every last bit, whether put there for reasons selfish or charitable, whether soft-sided or hard, whether it causes me to roll my eyes or jump for joy that we're finally getting rid of it.  It will all fit.

Packing is my super power.  Superman defies the laws of gravity.  Spiderman defies the laws of good taste.  (A unitard on a grown man?  Really?)  I defy the logic of constrained spaces.  Neither trunk, nor satchel, nor man-made bin of any kind has yet to conquer me.

Lest you forget, we successfully stuffed two small children with car seats, a television, expansive diaper bags and two weeks worth of essentials into a 95 Saturn for a cross-country trek.

Lest you forget, that same 95 Saturn magically expanded to hold a 6-foot oak table on another occasion. 

Lest you forget, I lived in London for two weeks out of half of a carry on bag so I could subsequently stuff it so full of your favorite chocolate pudding that it exceeded the maximum weight limit.

Lest you forget, we were able to move from San Francisco to Seattle using the small truck.  You doubted me when we started to pack it the first time.  You doubted me again when we repacked it at a roadside rest area because the truck was too full.  Too full.

So, take a deep breath.  Trust in experience.  Say to yourself, "It will all fit."  Then add the kitchen sink to your pile, because I'm feeling cocky.

Enthusidaisitude

Thelma claimed recently that I'm "just as lackadaisical" as she is when it comes to ensuring our children have good oral hygiene.

Phooey!

On a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 is lackadaisical and 100 is totally enthusidaisical, Thelma is a 4. I'm a 7, easy. Seven and a half, probably. That's almost twice the enthusidaisitude, which of course means I only need to worry about my kids brushing their teeth half as often as Thelma.

(I know. Enthusidaisical is not technically a word. Yet.)

Besides, I don't even like teeth. I mean, I like the purpose they serve. No one wants to gum a steak or drink a margarita pizza through a straw. But teeth are a source of physical and emotional pain.

There. I said it. My teeth hurt my feelings sometimes. They have no sense of propriety. No self restraint. They just pop out one day and shove other teeth around in the process. One day you're a cute little kid. The next day you're a freak of nature with two ivory dominoes jutting out below your lip. And it's not as though they're going to go away any time soon. You're stuck with them and you're stuck looking awkward.

It's like a skinny seven-year-old kid showing up at school one day wearing his fat uncle Leo's hip waiters. They don't fit. They don't look natural. They don't look good. They won't look good until the kid starts to look like Leo.

How did the dentist put it?

"Don't worry. You'll grow into your teeth."

Boy. That sure put me at ease. Why didn't he just ride the school bus and call me Bucky Mormon with all of the other kids?

So, I figure I'm doing pretty well to muster up 7% effort. I have demons to deal with.

Sage Advice So Often Scorned

At the entrance to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, there is a set of stone reliefs showing characters from The Wind in the Willows. The inscription below Mr. Angus MacBadger reads: Offers Sage Advice So Often Scorned. It inspired me when I read it. So, to wrap up our three days in Disneyland, I've compiled a list of lessons, tips and tricks Thelma and I have learned. Some funny, some practical. All 100% true.

• Let Thelma do all of your you planning.
• What looks and acts like a drain in the bottom of your Grizzly River Run raft also turns into a water spout when you plunge into the water below the falls. If you happen to find that drain/spout positioned between your legs as I did, it might be a good idea to put your foot over it.
• Two days in a row is not enough to see everything. 
  
• Three days in a row is too much walking and too many crowds.
  
• Take a day off between day two and day three. Your feet will thank you. We wish we would have inserted another day at the beach.
  
• Enter as early as you can. The lines are short and crowds are thin.
  
• After entering early and walking down Main Street, turn left toward Adventureland. Most of the crowds go right to Tomorrowland or straight to Fantasyland. You'll find no lines for the jungle cruise and Pirates of the Carribean.
  
• If you don't want to go on a ride, just tell your kids how scary it is.
  
• If you do want to go on a scary ride, make your children go anyway. You paid. They didn't.
  
• Don't take your children if they are still in a stroller or incapable of walking for hours at a time. You may think you're being a great parent, but they won't remember and you'll spend more time fighting with the stroller, crowds and children than you will enjoying the park.
  
• If you plan to ride the train around the park, don't board at New Orleans Square. That's were the lines seem to be the longest.
  
• The best part of the train ride is from the Toontown depot (next to It's a Small World) to Main Street. You'll pass through the Grand Canyon as it stands now and as it might have looked in the time of dinosaurs.
  
• Get a reservation first if you plan to eat in Downtown Disney or Disneyland's sit-down restaurants. You can call up to 60 days in advance.
  
• Don't expect to eat well for cheap. If you want good food at cheaper prices, you'll need to drive offsite somewhere. (Thank you Edgar and Olivia for the El Pollo Loco recommendation.)
  
• Take a break and leave the park for lunch. If you're lucky enough to have a hotel nearby, it's nice to slip in a nap and/or swimming as well.
  
• Use a Fast Pass whenever possible and find something to do in the meantime. You'll avoid a lot standing in line.
  
• Don't go to Honey I Shrunk the Audience unless you enjoy mice scampering across your feet.
  
• The best time to visit California Adventure is the few hours before it closes each night. Most of the lines are short at Paradise Pier and you can walk right to the front. Our kids were even able to stay on the Orange Stinger for three consecutive rides.
  
• The coolness factor of Disneyland t-shirts, hats and lanyards is directly proportional to your proximity to Disneyland. Avoid the temptation.
  
• If you really need Disney souvenirs in order to feel good about yourself, go to the Wal-Mart on Euclid Street. It's a few exits north of Disneyland just off of I-5. 
  
• Bugs do have a tough life. Check out the 3-D show "It's Tough Being a Bug" and remind yourself how wonderfully clever and underated A Bug's Life is.
  
• California Adventure gets a bum rap. Don't sell it short. The rides are fun, the crowds are smaller and the attentions to detail are terrific.
  
• You can avoid a lot of long lines if you are willing to go as a single rider. There is usually a separate entrance.
  
• Midway Mania on the Paradis Pier is a lot of fun for kids and adults. It's a good candidate for single rider because the lines are never short and you don't interact with the person riding with you. They might as well not be there.
  
• The Mission Tortilla factory tour is really interesting and you get a free, just-out-of-the-oven corn tortilla.
  
• The Grizzly River Run is a great way to cool off on a hot day. Lot's of splashes and lots of fun. As the sign says, you will get wet, you may get soaked.
  
• If you still want the splashes but don't want to wait in a line, stand on the observation deck overlooking the lower falls. You'll still pick up some of the splashes.
  
• If you need a break but want to run the edge off of your kids, set them loose on the updated Tom Sawyer's Island or the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.  You can sit at the entrance/exit and they can run wild and free.
• If you stay in a hotel near the park, get a pass for the Anaheim Resort Transit shuttle busses instead of parking. They'll drop you off as close to the park as the parking shuttles.
  
• If you find yourself at the far end of Downtown Disney (near ESPN or Rainforest Cafe), the monorail is a fast and fun way back into the park. It will drop you off in Tomorrowland.
  
• Skip the Indiana Jones ride unless you like being jerked around for a few minutes. It's more annoying than exciting. Think of it as an overgrown and less enjoyable version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
• Go, have fun and don't worry about the cost once you've bought the tickets.  Thelma and I figured out that we ended up spending about $2.50 per ride/attraction when you divide the amount of money we paid for the tickets by the number of things we did.  That's still cheaper and much cleaner than the county fair.