I have received my first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Update March 25: side effects have been limited to a very mild case of tenderness at the injection site (comparable to a bruise) and a moderate case of general ennui (though that might be standard operating procedure these days).

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It's that time of year again: time for the health insurance scramble!

I haven't spent so much as a penny against my health insurance in the past year, so of course they are increasing my monthly premium by 28%. Thankfully, I only get older one year at a time. At this rate, I'll be paying $2500/mo when I turn 50. It's getting too expensive to live!

The good news is that America's Greatest President followed through on his campaign promise to make my health insurance much more affordable by allowing me to have no health insurance at all. What a great guy. He really cares!

I went on healthcare.gov to see what my options were, but the site doesn't work in Google Chrome because of Chrome's new, extra-strict security rules. Apparently, Google thinks the federal government's approach to health care for its citizens is just another scam. I'm pretty sure they're right.

I shouldn't complain too much. They tell me my current plan is pretty good, and for the first time in 3 years, it isn't being discontinued out from underneath me. So I'll probably pay the extra premium and stick with it for another year. No matter what Our Fearless Leader thinks, $200 more a month still seems a better option than letting my insides rot out.

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Nearly half a million Georgians woke up today to discover that their Blue Cross Blue Shield healthcare plans are no longer accepted at Piedmont Healthcare locations around the greater metropolitan Atlanta area.

That's not news to the half-million Georgia residents who have individual plans (read: "Obamacare"). Piedmont hasn't accepted any of the Obamacare plans for years, meaning those of us who freelance or are poor (or both *ahem*) and live in regions dominated by Piedmont's near monopoly have gotten quite used to setting our own broken bones and buying our painkillers from street vendors.

It's hard to decide which side of this current shouting match I should be cheering for. Piedmont says it just wants fair compensation from a insurer who refuses to allow its customers to go to emergency rooms until after they have a doctor's note proving they have an emergency. For its part, BCBS says it will go bankrupt unless doctors agree to shoulder some of the burden of a state and federal government that mandate coverage they refuse to pay for. Settle down, immigrants and Hollywood actresses. In 2018 America, everybody loses!

I understand why children these days are marching in protest of an absence of common sense gun legislation, but I have to say this latest healthcare crisis demonstrates why I still support easy access to weaponry. America's (and especially Georgia's) healthcare system is so fucked up, we need all the bullets we can bite to help push past the pain of untreated ailments. You'll understand one day, kids, assuming you're lucky enough to survive next month's school shooting. (And the month after that, and the month after that....)

What's that you say, Russia? You've got a shiny, new nuclear missile that you're eager to use because no one else will let you cheat at elections or kill anyone you want to? Big deal. Go ahead and shoot. That's one way to solve America's healthcare problems. We'll see how much money Piedmont's doctors are worth when we're all glowing in the dark. Besides, I'm eager to see what excuse BCBS comes up with to disqualify radiation poisoning trips to the ER.

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Who wants a Walter health insurance update? No one? Well, you're getting one anyway.

As we all know, Georgia has done its best to destroy any healthcare options for poor individuals like me, and the Republicans controlling the federal government have, to their credit, only managed to make shit worse. So now, for the third year in a row, I have to scramble to figure out what my options are. Too bad no one else seems to know, either.

Blue Cross Blue Shield has withdrawn from offering individual plans where I live in Georgia, leaving me with only Kaiser Permanente (KP) HMO options available under the Affordable Care Act. The problem here is that I cannot keep my doctor, and no urgent care facility within 40 miles or hospital within 70 miles accept the Healthcare Exchange (HIX) plans. That's... not ideal. But it might still be my best choice. At least it theoretically pays for something if, say, I was hit by a bus in New York City.

Not that I have a lot of other choices. I have looked at some off-Marketplace plans, and they are really worthless. Twelve hundred dollars per year gets me a couple of urgent care visits and not much else. Compared to that, I might as well have no insurance and just pay the tax penalty ($695).

So the KP HIX HMO plan looks like the best option for me, though only so long as I make little enough to take advantage of the low-income subsidies. (Sweet spot catch-22: if I make a little more money, I'm priced out of health insurance, and as a male, I wouldn't qualify for Medicare in the state of Georgia even if I earned nothing at all.) It is my understanding that KP has to continue to offer me the subsidies discount if I qualify even though that asshole Trump has vowed not to reimburse them, essentially guaranteeing that next year I'll have no healthcare options at all.

I've been lucky so far, but I can't stay healthy forever, guys.

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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia is raising the monthly health insurance premium on my current health insurance plan to $338 for 2017. That's a 27% increase from monthly 2016 payments. I should probably be thankful it's that low. My 2016 premiums represented a 100% increase over 2015.

Perhaps you're thinking that $338 isn't a lot of money each month. If you can afford better, good for you. However, the Affordable Healthcare Act has destroyed insurance for self-employed professionals like me. The insurers are complaining that they're loosing money on individual plans, and I can understand why. No independent can afford their rates.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable. I don't mind paying for health insurance coverage; I've done it for years. But I don't see why the monthly amounts have grown so out of line with what I can afford. (Especially when it still won't pay for hospital visits!) We're not experiencing rampant inflation, and there doesn't seem to be any shortage of services. So what's driving these impossible costs? Perhaps its a liquidity crisis. We can't save anything for the future if we have to spend every penny paying for right now.

In the past year, my insurance has been billed for $479 worth of doctors fees. Comparing that number against the $4,056 or more I'll have to pay in premiums in 2017, it's clear to me that my best economic option is to cancel my insurance and pay the "individual shared responsibility payment" — the government's name for the ObamaCare penalty tax. At my income bracket, the government will penalize me $695 for the whole year. That leaves enough leeway for eight doctor's visits next year, and I'll still come out ahead!

So if you see me grab my chest and collapse, don't call an ambulance. There's no way I can afford that.

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Life sucks.

My health care situation has me depressed. The day after I got the news that my health insurance was useless, I got my premium bill in the mail. Thanks for literally nothing, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia.

Vince Dooley came out in support of Donald Trump yesterday. Maybe it's time for a coaching change. (Of course, I'd probably be just as irritated if Dooley came out to support Hillary. What a shitty election season.)

Mom and I drove past the site for the new Culver's in Newnan. I postulated that I was probably over-excited for their burgers, which probably weren't as good as I remembered. Mom said that if I was badmouthing Culver's I really must be depressed.

Have I mentioned that life sucks?

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If you've been following along at home, you know that after my formal complaint to the Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, my health insurance provider (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia) agreed to allow me to initiate a exemption request to change from my current health insurance plan to something that I could use in a local hospital. Turns out there was a catch: none of my local hospitals accept BCBSGa insurance plans.

As I said last time, Coweta County's Piedmont Newnan Hospital says publicly they take BCBSGa plans, but none that anyone has access to. Piedmont also owns the next closest hospital, Fayette County's Piedmont Fayette Hospital, so that's not an option, either. Neither is Fulton County's Grady Hospital, where all out-of-county residents are required to pay out-of-pocket for all services to be rendered up front. I called Tanner Medical Center in Carroll County and was told that they didn't not accept my current BCBSGa Pathways plan, but they do take OpenAccess plans.

That should be that, I thought. I just need to change to an OpenAccess plan. The BCBSGa representative who had been trying to help me set me straight. She explained that Tanner Medical Center, like Piedmont, didn't actually take any modern OpenAccess plans. She cushioned that blow with the statement, "Our records indicate that Tanner Medical Center does have an open contract with us for the Pathways plan, but" — wait for it — "if they are telling you that they won't process claims against that plan, we can't make them." Sigh.

Before I could even ask if I could be placed on a grandfathered OpenAccess plan that might be useful to me, she volunteered, "If we offered it to you, we'd have to offer it to everyone." She has a point. It would defeat the whole purpose of health insurance to offer anyone a plan they could actually use.

So in the end, I decided to keep my current plan, at least for the time being. Theoretically, it will help me if I end up in an auto accident on my way to a football game in Athens, GA. Maybe by the time open enrollment rolls around in November, my local hospitals will have figured out what health insurance plans they will actually accept. I won't hold my breath. I can't afford to risk passing out and being sent to a hospital.

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Earlier this month, I complained that despite my research, I was trapped in a health insurance plan that I cannot use in my local hospital. To Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia's credit, they have responded to my complaint and offered to help me request an exemption to switch to a plan that my local hospital will accept. Lucky day!

Shame on me for thinking it was going to be that easy. I called my local hospital, Piedmont Newnan Hospital, to find out what BCBSGa plans they would take. Their website says they take BCBSGa plans, and when I got someone on the phone, they admitted that's true . . . unless it's a plan I can have.

Quote: "We do take Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia HMO/PPO/POS plans except for the 'Pathways' [Affordable Care Act] Marketplace plans or any plans with colors in their names." That means no "blue," "bronze," "silver," or "gold" plans. Guess what? Those disqualifications cover every individual plan that BCBSGa offers. (I've double verified that information.)

So what Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia plans does Piedmont accept? Plans that don't exist anymore? Plans that no one can have? If that's the case, why advertise that you take them? What the fuck, Piedmont?

The takeaway is that so long as I stick with BCBSGa, I'm stuck going to a hospital in another county. Or I could change to a different, Piedmont-approved provider and cross my fingers that Piedmont isn't lying about those, too. It sounds like my best course of action is to never to get sick. I'll let you know how that works out.

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When I went to fill my cavity-prevention prescription medicine last month, I was told that my current Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia (BCBSGa) insurance plan wouldn't cover any of the cost, so I was forced to pay $21 for a tube of toothpaste. Irritated that my health insurance was providing me no benefit on the one prescription I have, I decided to get some value out of the plan and called my doctor for a physical. "Sorry," the receptionist said, "but we don't take accept your plan." That was news to me.

See, back in October, I was told by BCBSGa that my previous coverage was no longer "ObamaCare" compatible. My old plan was being killed off, and if I took no action, I would automatically be enrolled in a new plan that offered less coverage at a cost increase of 105% of my current premium. Nuts to that, I said.

Like a good little worker bee, I did some research. I looked at alternative plans on the federal healthcare exchange, BCBSGa.com, and a few other websites but not on the federally recommended Georgia Healthcare Exchange because there is no such thing — fuck helping the public, says the current state government, this is about ideals! In the end, I ultimately selected a "Pathway HMO" plan on BCBSGa.com that was nearly identical to the plan that BCBSGa wanted me to take, but without a $30/month out-of-network card. (Why would I need that? I'm a homebody. How often would I be outside of my network?) I ended up paying only an 80% increase in my previous premium. What a deal!

Which brings us back to my former doctor. When I checked in October (and again last week), he is listed as accepting my coverage on the BCBSGa.com "Find a Doctor" website. If you call BCBSGa and ask for a list of doctors who actually take my current plan, as I did on April 29, he's on that list too. However, I have since learned that he was not accepting this plan in October, and he still doesn't. In fact, no doctor working for Piedmont Healthcare does or ever has. That includes the local hospital, Piedmont Newnan Hospital, which despite indicating on its website that it takes Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO insurance, doesn't actually accept my plan. (I confirmed this information only after a telephone call to the hospital in which I was transferred 5 times by people who kept insisting I should ask my lying insurance company instead of Piedmont Healthcare.)

Why am I paying a monthly premium for health insurance for a doctor I can't see and a hospital I can't use and a prescription I have to pay full price for? Why is the information that both the insurance companies and the healthcare providers refer me to inaccurate or misleading? I'm beginning to understand why so many people seem to be willing to vote for Bernie Sanders.

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