Its been a while...

since I last blogged. Things have been status quo, but I have been feeling a bit "blah" and not much like getting a whole lot done...despite the fact that my to do list is insanely long. As a side note, have you checked this out? www.todolistblog.com Interesting...who would have thought?

We found renters for house #1 finally. They are an older couple with one grown son. She became ill a few years ago, and long story short, they ended up filing bankruptcy and selling their house to deal with the medical bills. Oh, and during all of this he lost his largest contract and suddenly became unemployed. As a landlord, you always question why someone can't pay their bills...more times than not if they can't pay their bills then they can't pay you the rent (as is the case with our renters in house #2). However, these seem like genuinely nice people, so I am willing to do what I can to make their stay in my house as comfortable as possible.

Their situation brings up the whole health care debate...what a mess we have in this country. Mr. Landlord and I are self-employed, but thankfully can afford to pay for health insurance with a large deductible. This time last year, we were getting raped by high premiums through a John Alden/PHCS plan that the husband of a friend of mine sold us. After some checking around, I finally got a very comparable plan at less than half of what we were paying with a better company. Paying for our health care has been difficult, but throw on top of the premiums and out of pocket the headache of dealing with the actual insurance companies themselves. We all know this nightmare...I have spent so much time on the phone, pacing the house, feeling my blood pressure rise, and knowing damn well that the person on the other end is trained to give the standard, inside the envelope response rather than take the time to really...I mean REALLY....think about the issue at hand and help me find a solution. I have also cursed out people at the insurance company call center. Literally....and I'm not a mean person. I'm pretty sure I dropped the F-bomb a few times. For instance, our deductible is comprised of both medical and prescription drug payouts. We had been paying out of pocket for our prescriptions through June, despite having met our deductible on January 4, 2007. I finally called the insurance company and said, "Hey, what's up?" Their response: "The company that manages the prescription side of your plan had not been getting a copy of the medical claims that paid your deductible. We owe you about $800, so we will get our investigator to sort out all the claims, review each one - both medical and prescription - and get it all straightened out. I promise, Ms. Landlord, you will get your refund." Well three months and MANY phone calls later, I found out they sent my refund to my OB/GYN instead of me. Fuckers...Fuckers....Fuckers...Of course, my OB/GYN would have gotten the money ultimately as I had a balance with him, but damn people, that was my money and it was up to me to decide what to do with it. I've seriously thought about taking the insurance company to court.

So, it's no wonder that my new renters had difficulties that led to bankruptcy, and no wonder that folks don't pay their medical bills. Mr. Landlord and I happen to be one of the few in America that can actually afford to keep ourselves covered. However, we are not far away from ending up in a very precarious and terrible situation. Its a shame that our healthcare system is in such a mess...truly a shame for this great country we live in.

That's my soapbox for the day.