| Vol.
I, No. 8 | Gardening
/ Memorial Day | May
18th, 2001 |
Puzzling
Evidence
. Puzzling
Evidence: True Stories ... To
Conserve or Not to Conserve
...
What was the
question again? | .
"The
problems in California show that you cannot
conserve your way to
energy independence."
President Geroge W. Bush
at
the Safe Harbor Water Power Corp.
Conestoga, Pa. / Friday, May 18th
2001
Gallons by which daily U.S.
oil consumption would drop
if SUVs' average fuel efficiency
increased by 3 mpg:
...................................................................
49,000,000 Gallons
per day that the proposed drilling of Alaska's
Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge is projected to yield:
....................................................................42,000,000
Harper's Index
Harper's Magazine, Vol.
302, No. 1811
April 2001
|
Not the very model of a modern
Gilbert/Sullivan?
In what may be one of the more curious pieces of
litigation to come down the pike, it seems a woman is suing an opera company
that's planning to do a bit of Gilbert & Sullivan for intentionally
keeping her from even trying out for the role. We're not for certain
on this point, but we think it was for a production of The Mikado.
...
.
At first, it seems a bit
unreasonable of the opera company, until one learns that role is for a young
{can we say?} virginal type. And it's not that the woman isn't young
enough. Heavens, no! It's that she's a little too pregnant for
the part. ... But maybe if someone simply did a convincing
delivery of "Things Are Seldom What They Seem" ... ???
. Anachronism
101
This one actually comes from the deeper recesses of archival
trivia, but it caught our attention. ... It seems many years
ago, a then-teen-aged fellow had gone to the movie theater in his home town
-- one of the glorious old types, somewhat like the Flynn, though to hear
him tell it, it was larger. He went to catch King of Kings, not
a great movie, he said, but with an engaging enough story, and still in all,
especially on the big screen, quite a spectacle to behold.
.
But
when the story came round to the part where the Roman guards started
whipping and scourging Jesus, evidently a middle-aged woman in the seat in
front of him was so overtaken with emotion, she rose from her seat and
glared at the screen, then cursed in a full-throated voice ....
"Damn those Catholics!" ... As he tells it, he didn't
have either the heart or the nerve to offer a slight history lesson at that
point, though he can't remember which.
.
And
finally, this one comes to us from the department of ...
. And
how will you be paying?
Just this week, as we were getting ready
to go to press, after looking over, in addition to lots else, some
employment figures we'd just crunched, we were talking to a friend.
Last month, it seems, she was scheduled for a special radiology
procedure. Of course, she was given an appointment at the pleasure and
convenience of the radiology unit, not by her own scheduling needs.
So, especially given the wait she'd already been through to get to the
appointment, she cancelled her own engagements and went in.
.
Everything
had gone pleasantly enough ... until the results came back. ...
The 'bad news', however, had nothing to do with any findings from the
procedure. In fact, quite the opposite. As it turned out, she
didn't get the procedure that was ordered -- a specific type of MRI -- but
instead received a routine MRI of the region being examined. ...
But that's not really the meat of the story. ...
.
Understandably,
she was more than a little put off by having had to rearrange her life to
get there, only to find out that she didn't get done what needed to be
done. But when she saw the charges for it, she was close to
outraged. Mind you, she has insurance. It's not that she was going to
be paying out of pocket. But she thought, especially in today's
environment of cost containment and HMO's, that it was ridiculous to think
the insurance company should have to pay for a procedure that wasn't ordered
and that did her no earthly good whatsoever. So, after deliberating
about it for a day or two, she decided to pick up the phone and contact her
insurance company.
.
She explained the
situation to them in a reasonable bit of detail. But as soon as the
voice on the other end realized that she was suggesting the insurance
company not pay for a procedure that wasn't ordered, the voice
explained to her that they had "no mechanisms" for that.
.
She
inquired a little further, partly in disbelief at what she was
hearing. But again the voice replied that there were "no
mechanisms" for not making a payment. Still incredulous, she went
hypothetical on them: I think in my case it was an honest mistake, she
began. But do you mean to tell me that [the insurance company] pays
every claim that's submitted without ever trying to determine if it's
legitimate or not? The voice again said something about a lack of
mechanisms for such things and suggested she take it up with her doctor or
the radiology folks. She tried one more time: Suppose I was a
physician to whom a number of people had been referred and submitted a
series of bills, each for the wrong procedure ... at which point she was cut
off a little abruptly and once again told something about the lack of
mechanisms "for such things."
.
More
astonished than insulted, she decided to let it go ... at least for
now. But that could go some way toward explaining why, when we were
looking at the numbers, far and away the greatest percentage increase in
employment costs was for private insurance, which had risen at a rate more
than 2 1/2 times that of per capita income, and even more when compared to
taxes or payroll. ...
.
And,
just out of curiosity: What sort of 'mechanism' do you suppose would
be required if someone in a managed health plan tried to get covered for a
treatment that wasn't ordered?
. *******
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