Medicare lottery

From The New York Times:

The Bush administration announced Thursday that it would conduct a lottery to select 50,000 people who will receive Medicare coverage of prescription drugs in the next 18 months, before drug coverage becomes available to all Medicare beneficiaries in 2006.

Looks to be a great project.

The government, Mr. Thompson said, will select participants at random from the pool of applicants, alternating between cancer patients and those with other serious diseases.

Who will be the lucky one?!

Beneficiaries will generally have to pay the same share of drug costs in the demonstration project as in the standard Medicare drug coverage that begins in 2006. They will also face a large gap in coverage, like the “doughnut hole” in the standard Medicare drug benefit. But under both programs, co-payments will be reduced or eliminated for low-income people.

Finally co-pay may be no-pay!

- Shephali

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A struggle with healing

I have a really tough time understanding the health system in USA. Till now I had heard the patients side mostly. It used to be my relatives or friends or a program on the TV relating a miserable state of a patient trying to cope up, somehow, with this health system. My stay here has not been for a very long duration, so needless to say I haven’t come across a problem like Jacob Reider had to face. Well he has put a nice posting of his experience with the insurance companies and has very nicely portrayed that the health system in really shaken out here. It is mind boggling to imagine how the billing staff handles these kinds of incidents. No wonder, the billing staffs make mistakes like printing a different address of the insurance company or printing the social security number instead of the phone number (Actually my brother-in-law had a similar experience!). I totally agree with Graham about his opinion on impoving health care coverage and billing process. Yes, it may sound crazy but then, if possible, it would be a big leap towards an efficient health system.

- Shephali

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Put a hold on yourself

Eating…who doesn’t like it but to what extent is the question. I came across this article - You know you crave it. It was interesting and informative.

Since life isn’t likely to get less stressful, here are some ways to help mute the call of food cravings.

Those tips about ways to stop craving looks really helpful. While reading I made plans to implement some of those tips myself. Easier said than done but there is no harm in giving a try. A healthy diet is key to a happy life.

- Shephali

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Playing with watercolors

I saw this painting done by my nephew, who is 5 years old and was really amazed at the flow of the colors. He has done it with a real smoothness withholding the essence of the drawing. He has painted himself and his little sister flying kites.

His painting reminds me of my days when I was little. I too painted (you can say tried to paint) with watercolors many times. But never came even close to his painting. Once I drew a hut and my mother thought it looked like an inverted basket! Another time I drew scenery and she said it looked like a cat and mouse race. I would get very disappointed at her mundane response. I would look at her with my wide-open eyes with a big question like,” What?! Can’t you make out what I have depicted in my painting”?

But, after seeing my nephew’s painting now, I realize that my mother reactions were genuine. Definitely my brush strokes would be haywire all over the paper, randomly, with no consistency and of course must have been unimpressive to her.

- Shephali

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Art on display

My friend sent me this amazing piece of art! Deserves an applause!

- Shephali

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Funny engineers

Jokes about engineers?! Well I have heard a lot about them but didn’t come across this one that my father-in-law posted on his blog yesterday.

Once, four engineer friends were traveling in a car. Almost halfway to their destination, the car…

- Shephali

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Relieved of Telemarketing?

I remember there was a time when I was tired of taking calls from telemarketers. There would be different kinds of “them”. Some would wait for you to respond after their two lines of introduction. Some would just not pause without completing their memorized lines. Others would ebb away their voice as soon as you said, ” sorry” or “next time please”. When I came to this country (USA), I was given a hint by my well-wishers that if I want to live in peace and I was busy I needn’t entertain a telemarketer. So, I would most of the time say, “it isn’t a good time” and avoid them. The fact is it wasn’t a good time, ’cause I would be in my preparatory period for taking some examinations. But never in my wildest dreams I thought of getting confronted by one of them.

My story, a true incident, goes to the time when The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was about to take some plan of actions for reducing this “nuisance”. Being a homemaker and studying at the same time I would keep away the telemarketing calls by saying a quick polite, “no”. One fine day, as usual my eyes were glaring my books, when a phone ring disrupted my whole schedule for the day. The conversation was with a telemarketer of a renowned newspaper group of Bay area. (Not mentioning the name for obvious reasons).

So it started like this…

He starts the usual way…”I am from blah blah blah…”
I snap in between - “please, I am sorry but I am busy now.”
He retorts, “So if you are busy, why did you pick up the phone?”
I thought I heard something wrong, ” Sorry, come again!”
He answers back, “ If you are busy why did you pick up the phone?”
I was taken aback, never had ever heard something like this before.
I replied, “err…I thought it would be urgent”.
His voice is gets louder, “so how did you think this wasn’t urgent?”
I dropped my timidness, “well, I know it is not urgent.”
He was now uncontrollable, ” so HOW HOW?!”
Well I was aghast, how could someone speak to me like this?
A question struck me in a lightening speed, “Can you tell me your name?”
He goes… “What…what?”
“Your name sir, I need your name…“
“My name…err…umm… what will you do with my name…?”, came the voice, a little shaken this time.

Fortunately or unfortunately some call was coming. I switched over to the other line to get a word of advice from whoever it was. It turned out to be a friend of mine. After keeping her on the hold, I switched over the flash button on my phone with all the fire in my eyes and the blood running up my veins…the result was a silence. Probably the man on the other side thought I had ended the conversation or may be he realized I was also canny. I really don’t know where and how long those strings of dialogue would have continued if not for that interruption. I was infuriated and upset about the incident. On the advice of my brother-in-law I called the supervisor of the Newspaper. After my narration of the incident there was an apology and a promise, not to be harassed in future again. Well, the calls from that particular newspaper did stop but the saga of telemarketing continued till the FTC came into action.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched the National Do Not Call Registry to give Americans a choice about getting telemarketing calls at home. According to a recent Harris Interactive poll, 92 percent of people who reported placing a number on the registry said they are receiving fewer calls; a total of 78 percent said they’re getting “far fewer calls” or none at all. (Do Not Call)

Well, that looks true in my case too. I am getting no telemarketing calls. Thanks to FTC. We signed up at the National Do Not Call Registry. If it wouldn’t have been their plan of stopping those calls I don’t know how I would have been managing my time and work, especially with my baby. Relieved…? yes, I would say so!

- Shephali

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Medical Cartoons

Found some hilarious medical cartoons while surfing. For more funny ones take a peek at this site - http://www.almeidacartoons.com/Med_toons1.html AND enjoy!

- Shephali

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The hat, my baby and the fairyqueen

When I was a child I remember a way to learn the names of some colors. It was fun to sing those lyrics.

Red red go to bed
Blue blue polish my shoe
Yellow yellow dirty fellow
Green green fairy queen

I never thought that one day I would be relating to the fairy queen through my child, again. My baby came in my world four months back. We, me and my husband, tried to talk to him as much as possible, thinking we will be the first best friends he will have. Slowly as days passed, we realized he spent a lot of time looking and smiling towards the wall. Well, on the wall are two of my hats hanging from a nail. We observed he spent a lot of time staring at it. Then his vocal cords also spent a lot of time exercising its power. We assumed there must be someone behind the hat with whom he made a friendly talk and plays peek-a-boo. We guessed it must be the fairy queen perched on the top of the hat. Who else can it be? Every time we changed his diaper or massaged oil on him, he would turn his neck all around to have a glimpse of those two hats in the room, sitting on a nail pierced in the wall. My conversation with him during those times is really amusing.

When I say, Sweetu, “is there a fairy queen?” He says, “aaaah!”
When I ask again,” is she pretty?” He says “angaaaagooooo!”
When I furthur inquire, “Cutie pie, is she watching you?” He laughs and coos at those hats.
Not once does his eyes move away from those hats.

His gurgling, swinging of his hands in the air, cooing again with a big open mouth, and a wink with his eyes has infused in us the belief that there is definitely a fairy queen. Who else can he talk to for so long? For us it is an imaginary fairy queen, but for him…?!!!!

- Shephali

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A dream so real

- Shephali

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