Concentrating attacks is crucial. Concentrating them on Hel is not out of the question. Just saying.
Not arguing, just thinking it might be in our best interest to keep her personally on the defensive. Of course, how to do that....
For what it's worth, I do have Dimension Door as an option now and might be able to get some civilians out of harm's way - or position some of our folks in a better location.
As a bit of advanced warning, it's that time of the semester when my posting may become very sporadic. I need to bury myself deep in my studies to wrap things up and survive the final. I will try to check in on a daily basis, but I make no promises. Well, I make one promise: I will be back.
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I'm not sure if we are actually doing better this fight than last time. Maybe too early to tell. Ez had 0 defensive spells running this time, so I had to get something up or die the next round and I may cast summon VI next round, basically leaving me out of things for 2 rounds.
Don't die in the meantime. I'm thinking about 2 Summon VI's back to back to avoid SR and saves as well as provide more targets for them to pound on.
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So Pittsburgh it is. I think these people running the American division don't know what they are doing and it became more and more evident over the six weeks we discussed this. I turned them down in the end and feel very good about it.
Question for those of you living in the states though. I've been gone a long while and insurance has changed quite a lot. This place (in Boston after all) was offering health insurance that I considered dog s@@# and there were no other options. 1 plan. $600/month for family, $1000 individual deductible / $2000 family deductible, $11,500 max charges per year, 20% coinsurance on most things, copay a little higher than average from what I can tell. Is that a legit health plan that people would sign up for or is it a kind of lowest possible offering intended to help you choose the open market so that the company pays no benefit?
I'm using the open market now in Pennsylvania to sign up, and even with the rate hikes the plans available seem far better.
I wish I had a clue to provide you with some sort of comparison, but I don't.
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No worries. My parents have no clue either because they have been on military insurance for decades. This might be an issue where it is so personalized that you can't really even draw comparisons because of different state regulations and age/health situations.
In the end I have sort of fallen into an awkward bureaucratic crack. Although we can afford the plans I see when browsing, because I'm moving from outside the country without a current document-able source of income inside the country it is trying to force me into medicaid. I won't be able to sort it out until we are there it looks like.
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I'm on my wife's insurance - adding me and Emma to it set her back about $400 per month, and our deductibles are way better than what you're looking at, plus that we have no spending ceiling and decent copays (we have Blue Cross, but her firm is big and well established, so I think we have an unusually good plan). IN short, your proposed plan looks like trash.
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It wasn't a spending ceiling for the care given, but for the maximum they could charge you in a year regardless of how much you use. Still, the ones I browsed through UPMC were far, far better. Maybe 400 something a month before any subsidy or discounts for choosing a silver plan and deductibles anywhere from 0 to 700 depending on the plan.
The plan my sister describes (600/month for her and her daughter, 10,000 deductible, where neither of them have any serious health issues that I am aware of, oldest person on the plan maybe 25 years old) is so bad that I am suspicious she has not done her due diligence to find a better plan than what her work offers. Once we understand the system I'm going to have to do some research on her behalf.
I can't give you any advice in this realm. I am active duty military so I have no choice in my medical insurance. Since I have no choice, I have done zero research on alternatives.
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The plan my sister describes (600/month for her and her daughter, 10,000 deductible, where neither of them have any serious health issues that I am aware of, oldest person on the plan maybe 25 years old) is so bad that I am suspicious she has not done her due diligence to find a better plan than what her work offers. Once we understand the system I'm going to have to do some research on her behalf.
That is phantasmagorically bad. $10.000 deductible? That plan is for all intents and purposes worthless.
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I don't know much about the US health insurance market, but if she is really paying $600 a month for that, she needs her head examined (also probably not on her plan). I know healthcare is expensive, especially in America, but on my private healthcare here I've never had anything that cost much more than a few grand (including surgery). What she has is tantamount to having a sort of disaster-recovery plan rather than proper health insurance. She seriously needs to shop around as there must be better plans than that, especially as I wouldn't be surprised if it has exemptions for certain (expensive) conditions as well. If it was practically free it might be fine, but $600 a month? Unless there is some sort of pre-existing condition the company knows about, given she is also young and unlikely to claim much it seems almost criminal, that premium. Are you sure there isn't some sort of mistake in those numbers?
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I can only say that is what she told me. I asked her to confirm because I couldn't believe it. Yeah, as you say the type of plan she describes is called catastrophic insurance and the only benefit to you is that you have "coverage" as required by the law but since you are young healthy and don't expect to use it, it has the lowest possible premium. But she somehow has a high premium as well. I can't understand it.
Two possible causes- she lives in a very conservative state that has been fighting insurance and subsidies for insurance. The local politics may be punishing citizens in that state. The other thing is that she is stubborn and grew up in a conservative bubble. She believes that Obamacare is the most terrible thing and therefore getting such an awful plan confirms her bias so that she doesn't research further. When I started asking if she had signed up for CHiP (children's health insurance program) which I'm sure would offer better and cheaper coverage for her daughter she started getting annoyed with me. So I suspect she has just made poor choices and doesn't believe there are better options. I'm going to annoy her a lot more with this once we figure out our own coverage until she has something better in place. She has a 2 year old. You can't have a 10,000 deductible with a 2 year old.
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No, quite - there's principle (misguided in my view - you don't let yourself get ripped off just to prove a point) but you look after your own first. If the government of the day wants to pay for that, you take it. Having been brought up on socialised healthcare, I know it has quite a lot of benefits for the citizen. In the end, you pay the "premium" through your taxes - you pay the taxes, you get the cover. Not all that much different in principle, it's just the economic incentives work in a different way. Some sort of subsidy is small beer in comparison.
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I can only say that is what she told me. I asked her to confirm because I couldn't believe it. Yeah, as you say the type of plan she describes is called catastrophic insurance and the only benefit to you is that you have "coverage" as required by the law but since you are young healthy and don't expect to use it, it has the lowest possible premium. But she somehow has a high premium as well. I can't understand it.
I had one of those plans for a little while. It was awful in every way. However, it only cost me $10 per month.
... The other thing is that she is stubborn and grew up in a conservative bubble. She believes that Obamacare is the most terrible thing and therefore getting such an awful plan confirms her bias so that she doesn't research further. When I started asking if she had signed up for CHiP (children's health insurance program) which I'm sure would offer better and cheaper coverage for her daughter she started getting annoyed with me. So I suspect she has just made poor choices and doesn't believe there are better options. I'm going to annoy her a lot more with this once we figure out our own coverage until she has something better in place. She has a 2 year old. You can't have a 10,000 deductible with a 2 year old.
This eagerness to cut off your nose to spite your face is the single biggest thing that puzzles me about modern America. The idea that one should not be able to use doctors or hospitals without paying a terrible prize makes no sense whatsoever to me.
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Apropos of nothing, really, but I learned something profound about bugbears the other day.
The bugbear looks you up and down as you approach. "I can sense that you have aligned the first three chakras," he says. "Very well. I am Knows About Chakras, bugbear Master of Enlightenment, and I will teach you about the fourth, centermost, and most important of all chakras."
"Gosh," you say. "It must be Heart, right?"
"What? No. That is not even a chakra! Who cares about hearts? The most important chakra is the Nipple chakra!"
"Nipple? But you don't even have nipples!"
"Foolish human! We bugbears conceal our nipples beneath our fur so that your weak human minds will not be destroyed attempting to comprehend their majesty and quantity!"
"Quantity? How many do you have?" you ask.
"Twelve," Knows About Chakras says, rather smugly.
"Twelve?"
"In three vertical columns! Now shut up and focus, human! Focus on your pathetic human nipples! The nipple is the foundation of a creature's first personal bond, the bond between a child and its mother. The bond of life to life, and ultimately the connection of all creatures to all other creatures in the great web of spirit -- that is the lesson of the Nipple chakra!"
"Hmm. Okay, I think I--"
"Go meditate!" .
Is there a way for you to keep Meira from dying? I like her.
Wait, I'm not in this game anyway. Nevermind. :P
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[Professor Farnsworth voice]Good news, everyone![/Professor Farnsworth voice]
So I just got offered a job. A real job, with things like job security, decent hours, reasonable wages, health insurance and something of a career path.
Also, my wife is pregnant with our second child (a little boy), who is due in March. I'm actually... happy? Whatever this feeling is, it is pretty nice.
Great news! Congratulations on all counts!
Nice, congrats.
Hey, congratulations! A baby and a job. Looks like Christmas came early this year.
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I love the old Eastern European feel to begin with, so the paintings appeal to me on so many levels. I was wondering where the actual mecha-werewolves were until I realised that it was just a poorly written headline; I prefer the separation, to be honest.
...you'll miss the clip-on tie.
Oh yeah. And being assaulted by unhinged crackheads and yelled at by skateboarding punks. One time a homeless woman reached back into her pants and threw a handful of poop at some random passerby right next to me (the best part about that story is that I was talking to a cop and two firemen as the time; they promptly hauled the poop-flinger off to jail). Soooo many things to miss about this job.
I work in a mall/office park property, but it is three blocks away from the Phoenix homeless shelter. I have a lot of sympathy for the homeless and their plight, but I am pretty eager to get away from all that.
yeah but poopflingers.... as long as you're quick with an umbrella that ought to be fun!
Excellent plan! You have a lot to celebrate this year, no need to shoehorn into just one day!
Merry Christmas (or the appropriate holiday of your choosing), everyone! I haven't said this often enough, but it's been a pleasure and an honor to come and escape with you all these years.
yes, good tidings to the lot of you
we don't do the gift-giving part but we sure chow down
Merry Christmas!