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Bad Medicine: Health Insurance from Ebenezer Scrooge

Insurance Math-When One Plus One Equals Zero

“Who reads insurance policies?” my pastor said rhetorically to a very distraught parishioner as we visited in his office. I didn’t think much about the statement until later, my wife’s illness the far more painfully urgent focus of our discussion, but as I think back now over my 64 years on the planet I can only remember one time I carefully read any insurance policy. When I did I was standing in two feet of water inside of our opulent mobile home in the aftermath of Hurricane Juan in Louisiana, and discovered we weren’t covered for floods.

Our recent situation is similar, but emotionally, 100 times more traumatic and way more expensive. Message? Break out those policies brothers and sisters and make darn sure you know what you have and what you don’t. Secondly, don’t feel stupid if you fail to understand what’s in print both large and fine. I have three college degrees, one of them in communications, and I often couldn’t interpret the specialized language commonly reading like some ancient incantation. I believe this is most deliberate, common coherency in insurance documents one of many changes greatly needed to even begin to modestly repair the awful mess impersonating an integrated health care system today. Continue reading “Bad Medicine: Health Insurance from Ebenezer Scrooge”

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Teaching and the Rodney Dangerfield Syndrome

“I get no respect. The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.”

Rodney Dangerfield

A few years back I received a nice, but unfortunately negative response to a book proposal about education. Having spent years selling and also being frequently rejected for book and article ideas of all sorts, the rejection was not particularly painful, just another aspect of the writing game, but part of the reasoning for the rejection opened a door to perception with respect to how teachers are viewed by the general public in terms of professionalism and expertise.

As with much in this blog, my book proposal concerned teaching and pathways to better performance of schools. As part of the proposal, I noted over 30 years of successful classroom experience in challenging environments, nationally published articles, numerous teaching awards, and a master’s degree in education, what I considered to be fairly solid credentials. Apparently, these weren’t considered very significant. Let me share part of the literary agent’s response. Continue reading “Teaching and the Rodney Dangerfield Syndrome”

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Charter Schools

I’d like to put a personal face on charter schools from the perspective of a retired public school teacher. I often felt like America wrongly blamed teachers for a slogging war on ignorance much like it unfairly blamed returning Vietnam War soldiers for losing an unwinnable war. The popular insinuation for many today is that teachers have somehow failed our country and the remedy is to bring in the mercenaries, private charter schools, to fight the education war the right way. To anyone who has ever been on the front lines in the war on poverty, the notion is ludicrous, and I’ve taken some solace in my retirement in thoughts that, eventually, just as we did with Vietnam, most Americans will come to the realization a lot of good people were mistreated by the country at large and will some day come to see the light of reason, painful as it may be.

I will have much to share about the “education reform” movement and people like Betsy DeVos as I weave my tapestry, but let’s take a brief look now at the general charter school concept.     Continue reading “Charter Schools”

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Mission Impossible

A master cookie thief, provocateur, trespasser and weird noisemaker of the highest order, JJ won my heart as he destroyed any semblance of serenity. The diminutive rascal toddled more than he walked, often rushing about like a blind man with his pants on fire: arms extend, balance tentative, direction erratic, but still demonstrating abundant enthusiasm that generally made me smile no matter what JJ did, which often involved getting into some sort of trouble. I was tasked to change his life, but don’t believe I did much except to inject a little light into the deep darkness of poverty.

JJ careened like a pinball off of furniture and other kids who rarely became upset as they would if some other kid invaded their space. It seemed everyone understood JJ required a different set of rules. Shorter than a yardstick, he often lived in his own tiny world, almost a cartoon character in behavior but very real all the same. However, JJ’s actual future in a less than hospitable larger world was more than slightly clouded, my responsibility established to improve daunting odds owing to JJ’s disability and misfortune. The brutal reality is that the little black five-year-old born prematurely with obvious disabilities would face many challenges. I tried to make his future a little brighter, but often felt and still feel I hadn’t the time, talent or resources to pull off any major transformation and could only make JJ’s days with me a little better. Continue reading “Mission Impossible”