Almost Died in a Rain Forest
Went a lot better in Costa Rica than it would have in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Had my second brush with death in as many weeks on Thursday. The week had started out like any other — drinking Tito’s from sun up to sun down on vacation with one friend and five strangers who quickly became five friends — and next thing I know I’m collapsed on the jungle floor after zip lining looking at the canopy with black bursts in my eyes.
At that point in my life, I was content to die. I don’t say this to alarm anybody but let’s be real… I would have died much younger than 33-years-old had I had the misfortune of being born in any other era other than the one with air conditioning, automatic transmission, and widespread wifi.
When we got back off the mountain and I couldn’t keep half a bottle of water inside my intestines, I came to the grim conclusion that I was dehydrated to the point that I needed immediate medical attention.
Honestly it wasn’t my first dehydration rodeo. Despite my jaundiced skin, I could have ridden the wave out with a couple sips of water and a nap. That’s what I would have done in America.
Instead I was in a sensible country with nationalized healthcare like Costa Rica. While I wouldn’t be entitled to the native price of $0, I knew it’d be a better bargain than going to a hospital in America the land of the free and the home of the “deductibles,” “co-pays,” and “in-network doctors.”
I didn’t deal with any of that “access to affordable healthcare” nonsense that right-wing Democrats try to pitch working people as a solution to their political cowardice.
My doctor, the bilingual product of a Texan and a Costa Rican who met on a beach before getting divorced 12 years later, basically told to stop being an idiot (something I’m still considering) before pumping me full of four super-powered IVs and passing off further medication to a trustworthy friend who god bless her stayed behind to make sure I didn’t die by myself in a foreign land.
The total bill came to a whopping $252, including the international charge PNC levies against me for using my own money in a foreign country because borders still exist in 2020.
I talked to my friend Josh, a friend of the newsletter, and he informed me that he had what we Americans colloquially call “good insurance” when he recently sought care for extreme dehydration at an in-network hospital. He only got two IVs and no pills and he walked out with a $4,000 bill.
Americans tolerate this shit because we are overworked and underpaid and we can’t descend en masse on our nation’s capital within hours like our European counterparts.
With The Left as close to the White House as it’s been in nearly a century, I’d like to think those tides are turning.
MICHIGAN PUMPS THE BRAKES WHILE OHIO CONTINUES TO BURN CASH TO MAKE LIFE HARDER FOR POOR PEOPLE
Healthcare is a fickle thing in America. While every other industrialized country on the face of the earth has comprised a system that enshrines medical care as a right, one of America’s two viable political parties has actively worked for the last four decades to make sure fewer poor people have healthcare on the account they committed the crime of being poor.
One devious way Republicans trim healthcare rolls is by enforcing “work requirements” — something that sounds good to the average idiot who refuses to spend more than 30 seconds thinking about the issue.
Michigan tried to enact the same policy before Ohio. However, Michigan elected a Democrat for governor in 2016 while we elected a sleepy Republican elf.
As such, Michigan will quit wasting taxpayer money trying to enforce a law that is probably unconstitutional.
You can probably guess which way Ohio is going.
From the (notoriously conservative) Toledo Blade editorial board:
Michigan is a good example of this problem. Its Medicaid work requirements — enacted in June, 2018, under then-Gov. Rick Snyder — took effect in January and could cost more than 80,000 people coverage in the coming months. Michigan’s work requirement, similar to ones set to take effect in Ohio next year, mandate that able-bodied recipients work 80 hours per month, get job training, or enroll in formal education to stay insured under the program.
Michigan’s work requirements have been challenged in court. Following a unanimous federal court ruling striking down work requirements in Arkansas, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her administration are making two legitimate requests.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is asking for an expedited decision on its case. And Ms. Whitmer is calling on the Republican-controlled Legislature in Lansing to suspend Michigan’s work requirements to avoid “creating senseless confusion” among those insured under the federal program. The state’s “Healthy Michigan” Medicaid expansion program provides health coverage for those with household incomes at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty line, about $33,000 for a family of four.
A University of Michigan study published last year found that Michigan’s primary care-focused program was successful in improving access to care. Healthy Michigan covers more than 600,000 state residents.
I’ve spent a lot of money paying a therapist to convince me I’m not a bad person destined for Hell. And perhaps he’s right, because it’s hard for me to imagine seeing something like “600,000 more people have access to healthcare” and then reverse-engineering some billionaire-backed horse-shit on why those people are not entitled to that healthcare as if we don’t live in a country that prints money.
CORONAVIRUS: WE’RE FUCKED, BABY
Costa Rica was a tranquil land of indigenous nature (no private beaches!) and affable locals and ex-pats. It was also the place where I was radicalized about how unprepared America is to deal with the coronavirus.
Our president is an anti-science moron who gutted our pandemic response team and only cares about this outbreak in so much as it affects his precious stock market, the orgy of cocaine addicts that conjure wealth for 10% of Americans while also nuking the world economy from time to time.
From nbc4i.com:
Several universities across Ohio are either bringing students home or canceling programs abroad due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak that claimed the life of its first victim in the United States Saturday.
On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued Warning Level 3 travel advisories for Italy, South Korea, Iran, and China based on the coronavirus outbreak. The Level 3 advisory warns against nonessential travel.
An Ohio State University spokesperson said students currently in South Korea are on their way back to Ohio.
“Our students who are studying in South Korea are coming home or are on their way home this week,” said OSU spokesperson Ben Johnson. “We sent out an all-campus email this afternoon.”
In addition, OSU has added Italy and Iran to the list of countries under temporary restriction for university-sponsored travel for all faculty, staff, and students through at least April 20.
Unsurprisingly, NPR has a more concise article on what you need to prepare for a possible coronavirus quarantine than anything produced by the American government. I live as a hermit; so 35 days without going outside is light work for me. But
I don’t say this to be alarmist. But think about it: We live in a country without universal healthcare or guaranteed paid days off. That low-wage worker who prepares food but can’t afford to miss a shift or go get checked out? Guess what? They’re going to work and putting germs on your food—no fault of their own, either.
MIKE DeWINE TOTALLY HAS A PLAN TO PREVENT MORE OHIOANS FROM DYING BY SUICIDE
Suicides in Ohio surged last decade by 46% among adults and 56% among youth. But no worries, our bureaucratic governor totally has a plan that the local media will parrot in good faith!
From abc6onyourside.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — Governor Mike DeWine released the first-ever collaborative suicide prevention plan for Ohio on Friday afternoon. The plan, which is in response to an uptick in the number of deaths by suicide, will direct the state's suicide prevention efforts for the next three years.
Suicide deaths increased by 45% among all Ohioans and by 56% among youth ages 10-24 from 2007-2018, according to a November 2019 report published by the Ohio Department of Health.
The Suicide Prevention Plan's priorities will raise awareness of the warning signs and risk factors of suicide, build suicide prevention capacity and infrastructure at the organizational, local, and state levels. It will also focus prevention efforts and groups identified as having higher rates of suicide, including youths ages 10-24, males ages 25-59, and veterans and military members.
I’m going to be blunt: I’ve had two close friends that killed themselves. I was standing outside on a Thursday in Franklinton when a neighbor killed himself at 2 p.m. I would be lying if I said I had never honestly pondered the idea of suicide.
Guns are the common thread through that last paragraph, with a sprinkle of lack of access to “affordable healthcare” which almost never seems to include the brain part.
So sure, Mike DeWine has a plan to prevent suicide. It’s called the Suicide Prevention Plan so it must be good. But this is also the guy who can’t pass rudimentary gun control legislation and is also actively working to make sure fewer people have healthcare.
He doesn’t really care about the suicides. He just feels enough shame to project the image that he does. If this plan leads to a mass drop in suicides, then I’ll gladly shove a shoe in my mouth. Unfortunately I have lived in this state for 28 years of my life and have seen the ramifications of Republican social policy.
RESIDENTS HAVE TO SHOW COPS THE PICTURES ON THE WALL TO CONVINCE THEM THEY’RE RAIDING THE WRONG HOUSE
One thing that sucks about “covering” Ohio is that the state is too big for one person. I am located in Central Ohio and obvious biases leak from that.
But god damn it sure seems like any time we see what’s popping in Portsmouth, it’s always something out of an Elmore Leonard novel.
From Shannon Litton of wowktv.com:
PORTSMOUTH, OH (WOWK) — ‘Home Sweet Home,’ took on a very different meaning for Jeff Logan and Misty Marcum on the night of Wednesday, February 19, 2020, at their house along 6th Street in Portsmouth. Logan says they were both sitting on the couch when they heard a pounding on the door and then someone yell ‘Portsmouth Police.’
The police, with weapons drawn, were responding to a burglary-in-progress call. “This is my house, there’s no burglary. You can look at the pictures all over the wall [and see it’s my house]” Logan said. “[The officer] pretty much ignored what I said while they lined me, [Misty], and her brother up against the wall and had us at gunpoint the whole time.”
“[The officers] wouldn’t listen to us until, finally, it came out that it was the wrong address and they just walked away,” said Marcum. “It takes your peace of mind. Those were the cops.”
“Whenever we get a call like that, that is protocol,” said Interim Police Chief Debby Brewer. “You go in with your weapon out. Now as far as what happened inside, we do not have video inside.”
One of my guilty pleasures is ledes — Big J journalism jargon for the first sentence of an article — from local news outlets. And folks, we may not see anything better this year than what we saw here today:
‘Home Sweet Home,’ took on a very different meaning for Jeff Logan and Misty Marcum on the night of Wednesday, February 19, 2020, at their house along 6th Street in Portsmouth.
Ah yes — that famous thing robbers do, calmly answer the weapon-bearing police with their significant other.
The sad part is you can bank on Jeff and Misty on being white. Because otherwise they probably would have been shot in an incident where seven police body cameras mysteriously malfunctioned at the same time.
THIS ALLIGATOR LIVED IN A BASEMENT FOR 25 YEARS LIKE A BLOGGER
I love all animals, and yet I’m baffled by any dipshit that would want to keep an alligator in their basement for 25 years!!!!
From tiffinohio.net:
GROVEPORT, Ohio — There are some things they just don’t teach you in the police academy.
...
The Ohio Department of Agriculture was notified, and confirmed the residents did not possess a valid exotic animal permit as required by Ohio law.
State wildlife officials responded to the scene escorted by Commander Darrel Breneman, where the property owner voluntarily surrendered the animal.
The 25-year-old alligator is retiring to an animal sanctuary in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Between this and raiding Zeke’s dad, the Department of Agriculture has had a busy three months. Please, folks, make sure you’re compliant with all Department of Agriculture regulations because it’s done playing games.
THOSE WMDs. Bizarre rich-people secrets I learned undercover at Canyon Ranch Spa… The best (and worst) ways to spot a liar… What happened when Tulsa paid people to work remotely… “Be yourself” is terrible advice… Obama lost his grass roots army; will Bernie lose his?