____

I’m with you.

Never have I needed to work so hard to advocate for myself to get the care I needed as when I was with UHC.

By comparison, this year has held two major surgeries for me, neither expected, and my current insurer just shrugged, asked ONCE for proof of medical necessity, and paid the bill.

Also, let’s not forget the breach at a UHC subsidiary in recent months that brought down pharma payment systems for weeks…

And here I thought orange just pulled this out of his ass to malign immigrants.

This is a damned shame to say the least but I’m as guilty as anyone.

My own ostrich coping mechanism has been long term personal goals and wondering what I’ll do when I can no longer work and SS is gone.

It’s put me in a shitty state of mind lll admit, and I have no excuses. Overwhelmed is a statement of fact, not an excuse.

I’ve been remote since 2014. Plenty of friends made. Wouldn’t date at work as a general rule, it creates unnecessary risk IMO.

Certainly wouldn’t eg move in with someone I worked with, etc.

Then again, being poly and happily married, risk calculus is part of my mental process before attempting to date a particular person. If it goes south, will they show up naked and screaming on my front lawn in the middle of the night?

Since an angry ex doesn’t have the option of along me look bad to my wife (who also dates), any serious crazy could escalate quickly and creatively. I want nothing to do with that.

$25 a month, US, MVNO on Verizon network.

Had to bring my own phone, which is in bad shape and I’ll have to replace eventually, but I basically don’t think about my service at all.

That MVNO also has a program to heavily discount service for up to three months due to loss of job or temp disability, because, yknow, you need a phone number to look for a job.

That discount was damn nice when I had a couple of surgeries this year.

Make sure that it can be backed up, somehow.

Save your recovery codes in an organized and secure fashion.

Offhand, Ente does backup I believe.

Bitwarden does export (save on encrypted drive, or print and put in safe deposit box)

Particularly because citizens will not take those jobs.

At 20, a job was a job.

Me at 40+, physically incapable of doing that work - much less at the requisite speed.

Dammit, the one positive of suffering through summer temps is fresh produce.

• Fuck these greedy, utterly insensitive, bastards.
• Malls are generally owned by large corps in the business of owning malls. Anyone know offhand who owns this one so I can avoid their other properties?
• How many “housing first,” programs could we run using a year of the company’s profit?

While we can’t say for sure, I’d certainly be wargaming some possible outcomes and how to respond to them.

Wouldn’t surprise me if disability for mental health reasons was high on the list of things to cut. It’s effectively an “invisible” disability, which makes it somewhat easier to cut while limiting loss of political capital.

I wish you all the best getting through the upcoming difficult years. You’re a genuinely good person for caring and thinking far enough ahead to realize the question needs to be asked.

For other folks reading this, now is an excellent time to review your payroll deductions and ensure you’re paying for private disability coverage - both short and long term. It’s one of the least expensive ways to hedge against the crazy of the next four years.

TBH, I’m mildly surprised that this is a recent change. Signed binaries are neither new technology nor all that difficult.

Compared to all of the other crazy things that government does, this seems like relatively low hanging fruit.

PS don’t give our orange leader to be (or congress) any ideas…

• this is terrifying.
• This does not sound legally permissible, see posse comitatus.
• Members of the military have an obligation to refuse illegal orders. I am neither in the military nor a lawyer, so I can’t go too deep on that.

Even if we see (likely) “act first, let it wind through the courts later,” I’d expect there to be a substantial number of refusals.

If memory serves, the first version of the administration used “acting” department heads with some regularity.

If they are “acting,” there isn’t a confirmation hearing because no one has yet been nominated to fill the role.