Fake Healthcare

I know I said I wouldn't do this anymore, but today I am simply too angry not to write. I've got to share this absurd experience...

Ah yes, it is now 2015. Remember when the start of "Obamacare", aka The Affordable Healthcare Act, was postponed for 12 months last year? This was mainly in response to the national outrage caused by people loosing their (existing) health insurance coverage due to the new healthcare laws. This happened despite Obama's bogus promises that the people would absolutely be able to keep their current health insurance. He seemed pretty clear about that. At the time I was not sure what all of the uproar was about, and I naively attributed it to a combination of dirty Republican tactics and accidental implications of a new law that I figured just needed more time for the kinks to be worked out. Oh how wrong I was...

Over the last year, it became increasingly apparent that I would probably not benefit whatsoever from these laws. As I looked closer, I discovered that the purpose of this law was not to help people, but rather to put money in corporate & political pockets, in a not too dissimilar manner that almost everything else our government creates seems to do. Than, about half way through 2014, a doctor who shall remain unnamed told me the real reasons for this mess. She told me that the Affordable Care Act was never intended to help anyone, but rather to cut healthcare costs in general, regardless of what the implications on the people may be. That sounded cruel, but at that point it did not really surprise me, as a lot of other disgusting truths about our political system seemed to be emerging every single day. From Blackwater to Obamacare, the message has been consistent: we don't care about or work for you, we just want to get rich, at any cost.

So I figured that when my current health insurance policy (through my fathers employer) expired, I would be pretty fucked. But that was not supposed to happen for another 6 months, when I reach 26 years of age. Up until a month ago, throughout my life I have been very, very privileged and lucky to have one of the best health insurance plans in the world. I have never had to worry about how I would pay for my doctors and medications, or what would happen in the event that I was hospitalized, or diagnosed with another illness. I always knew I would be just fine, because my insurance was so great.

But this all ended on the 1rst of January, and nobody ever told me it was happening. No letter in the mail, no emails, no phone calls, no warnings, whatsoever. In my mind I new that I had to the beginning of May to take care of all of my health issues, and prepare for life without this failsafe coverage I've been so fortunate to have all my life. So when I got a call from a family member earlier this month informing me that the price of her medications randomly sky-rocketed, I was quite confused. It took me a couple of weeks to get the information about this new policy, and another to understand just how pointless and awful it really is.

It was about a week and a half ago that I started getting nervous because it was almost time to fill my prescriptions, which I  cannot function without. In preparation, I read through the documents my father emailed me, then I called my insurance company to figure out what the damage would be, because the documentation was not very clear, and each paragraph seemed to contradict what the last said. The first time I called, I was told that medications do not apply to my deductable, and that my deductible was only $350. They told me that my medications would still be just a copay, and that my doctor appointment copays had increased slightly. "No big deal, I can live that", I thought.

But then about a week ago, I went to the pharmacy to fill my prescriptions, and was shocked to discover that the total cost of these medications is now about $406, rather than the $20 or $30 total copay I've been paying for years. I thought that this must just be a mistake, because that is not what the insurance company told me. Since this happened during the weekend, I nervously waited until Monday, when I could call the "Health Advocate" line to figure out just wtf was going on. When Monday rolled around, I made the call.

This time, a rather irritated woman answered, and told me that she was my assigned 'health advocate', and that she'd be happy to assist me with figuring out why my prescriptions cost so much. She told me that we had to have a conference call with some other organizational unit of the company, to figure out what happened. She placed me on hold until she connected the call, and when she got back on the line, I heard her screaming at the computerized voice that was asking us what we needed help with. "Please enter your--" "REPRESENTATIVE!!!!", she kept screaming until the computer said "Let me connect you to someone that can help you." The advocate seemed really, really frustrated with her job and life, and I started to get a bad feeling that this was not going to turn out well.

When we were finally connected with the insurance agent, she started to ask him what was going on with my prescription benefits. He interrupted her to say "I cannot talk to you without the patients permission", at which point I interrupted him to say "Yes, you have permission to talk to her." He explained that none of my medications were covered anymore, because they are not "preventive medications." The health advocate said "Well there, now you have your answer..."

I was not sure what to say, so I just got really angry and said "This does not help me. What is the point of me even having this 'insurance plan' if it does not cover anything that I need it to cover?" After an awkward ten seconds of silence, the insurance agent said "Okay, great! Well is there anything else I can help you with today?" ... to which I replied, "I seriously doubt it...", to which he replied, "Okay, thank you for choosing United Health Care and have a great day!"  ... uh huh...

That was pretty much the extent of it. Oh, I almost forgot, I do not actaully have a $350 deductible, I actually have a $3000 deductible. So I am fucked, and according to what my "health advocate" said, so are about 97% of people with private health insurance as of the beginning of 2015, including her...

So there you have it, just another thing I hate, with no solution: superficial, fake health care. This fucking blows, because I thought I had to until May to figure out how I was going to afford my prescriptions. Maybe if I had known that this was happening, maybe if my insurance company had bothered to tell me, than I would have had some sort of a plan and way to deal with it. But instead I am in total panic mode, dreading each new day, watching the pile of the pills that keep my alive get smaller every morning, and trying to come up with $400 before I totally run out.

This is directly the result of Obamacare. If you are going to give 20% of the population health coverage (even if it is shit), than you must consider where the money to finance such an endeavour is going to come from. Well, it turns out it's coming from young people like me. In fact, since I have more health problems than anyone in my family, I will probably end up paying for our entire deductible myself, that is if I don't drop dead from stress before I meet it.

My DNS Has Expired

This blog has been using the domain name blog.donotaccept.net for a while now. Apparently, massive DNS hijacking fraud is going on right now. I have tried to access the domain, and also the parent domain, donotaccept.net from several different proxies and networks, to no avail. So, for the time being, this blog is now accessible via donotaccept.blogspot.com. Sorry for inconvenience. I'm not happy either.

Actually, it appears the domain has simply expired. In the process of fixing this issue now...

VPSBG.eu is an Excellent VPS Provider

A friend of a friend of friend of a friend of a friend was having problems with his VPS. It had been hacked over and over again, and he was tired of it. It was time for him to find a provider that would send him his root & control panel passwords in an encrypted message.

He contacted vpsbg's tech support, and after a few emails, they agreed to send him a new password, PGP encrypted, so that it would not be intercepted in transit!

VPSBG.EU is the only provider I've ever heard of doing such a kind thing for a (rightfully) paranoid customer. Bigger providers like Digital Ocean do not... although d.o. has a feature to add an ssh key before spinning up a droplet, I have still received the root password, in plain text, in my email... every...single...time.

So, it's time to switch to a better provider. My friend of a friend of a ... (you get the point) has highly recommended this provider after his recent experience with their excellent customer support, and I am spreading the word.

Run A Tor Node.. Or 3... It's Not Broken!

This is a touchy subject, but technically we still have a constitution to protect our free speech, so I'm going to have at it. If you value your online privacy, then you probably value tools like the tor network. Recently, the Darknet black-market Silk Road II was taken down, in a rather pointless joint effort with Interpol, the NSA, and other international law enforcement forces. They claim to have "broken" tor, because they now operate so many tor nodes.

Tor works best when more people use it, and more importantly, when more unique individuals/entities run nodes. (How Tor Works) Lately, it seems tor users in general have been under attack, and not just people using the network to conceal their illicit activities. It appears that all tor users in general are being targeted. Legitmate reasons to want to conceal ones identity may include being a whistleblower, or journalist, or political activist... (basically a member of any organization working for the good of the people that is targeted by the corrupt establishment.)

So, there is a place for anonymity tools in this world, and it is unjust and hypocritical for our government to target its own people. The US government has long promoted the use of tor in other oppressed nations, for reasons of reclaiming freedom! Yet, the NSA spies on the American public... right.

The solution is to RUN A TOR NODE! It's really easy, and will cost you about $5 a month. I will even set it up for you, if you pay for it. All you need is a vps (virtual private server). They are cheap. Email me at donotaccept at gmx.com (cause I get a LOT of spam when I post email addresses...) Together we'll do some good for the world.