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marylou

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Posts posted by marylou

  1. What is often not mentioned with regard to the upper Stehekin is that the NPS has estimated it will cost SIX MILLION dollars to fix the road. That can only take place after Congress votes to adjust the Wilderness boundary to make room for the rerouted road. With very limited exceptions that do not apply in this case, Federal Wilderness boundaries can only be changed through an act of Congress.

     

    Funding for the Upper Stehekin would come out of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. That Subcommittee is also charged with funding road repairs elsewhere, such as in the FS land system. Yes, the FS and the NPS are, at Cabinet level, under different departments, but at the congressional funding level, they are not. If there is widespread public support for moving and fixing the upper Stehekin, that will essentially take away 6 million from other projects, such as repairing the road and bridge damage in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie NF. 6 millon would go a very long way there, and most of the MBSNF projects still don't have funding, even many of them from the 2003 flood.

     

    What I'm trying to say about the upper Stehekin project is be careful what you ask for.

     

    I did not care for Joel Connely's article, I think it further divides us instead of finding ways to bridge the gap between, say, the NCCC, and the WCC or other user groups who use roads to access recreation.

  2. yeah, right. like 99% of washingtonians know how to merge onto the freeway? or even use turn signals? :battlecage:

     

    That's a really good point, Bob. I have thought for a long time that there should be some sort of a test that they should give people before they are allowed to drive a car. They would need to show that they could safely operate the car, and then maybe do a written test to show that they understand the rules we have about driving. If that didn't work, they could have law enforcement ticket people for doing things that are unsafe to themselves and others instead of trying to "catch" people speeding.

     

    Yes, there's a good reason they won't let me be in charge of anything.

  3. in general, with a few minor exceptions, everyone from Oregon and British Columbia are assclowns. mmmkay? :ass:

     

    Except for Fern and Murray up north, and the Muffster in the Buffer State down south. Badass, all of them.

     

    Don't hate us Washingtonians for being so gul-durned groovy. It's not our fault, we were born this way. :grin:

  4. Shop around for the cost.

     

    Ask, "How much will this cost, and what do I get out of this?"

     

    In addition, don't just shop around in the US. See if going overseas to Singapore will benefit you too. I have heard of places like Singapore and Hong Kong that have US trained doctors. After you are done with the surgery, you get a 5 day vacation at the spa where you have the surgery. Find out how much it costs, talk to your insurance company and see if they would be willing to pay for your airfare too.

     

    I think you're a little naive about how HMOs operate.

     

    They don't pay for you to have surgery in Singapore.

     

    I saw my ankle surgeon up at GH today and he practically pooped his pants when I told him I'd be picking up 20% of the cost. They keep docs blisfully out of the loop on the nuts and bolts of things like that.

  5.  

    I wouldn't laugh too hard, KKKY. Your cookie cutter software job can and probably will be outsourced to India or elsewhere with a snap of a manager's finger. Marylou's will never be.

     

    That's true, though the stagehands strike on Broadway may be a watershed moment for my trade's working conditions. We'll see.

  6. The main reason health care costs are always going up is becuause people do not "shop around" for cost.

     

    Can anyone tell me they knew the cost of going into a surgery or investigated the cost before they did the surgery?

     

    And if you knew the cost, and it affected your pocket book, would you look for a different procedure? People just do not do that kind of investigating. Hell, not even the doctors know how much some of the stuff costs.

     

    I haven't decided yet if I would have had the surgery or not if I'd known about the cost. Wait until I can see the complete results of the work that was done and then I bet I will know the answer. In my case, there was no alternate procedure. The alternative would have been to continue living in constant pain, as I had for 8 years prior to having the work done.

     

    That said, I still don't know how the hell I'm going to pay for this.

  7. :lmao:

     

    aren't you paying big $$ for those great union benefits, salaries, vacations, etc? sucker.

     

    No.

     

    If I wanted to lay blame, I'd blame the 2 guys who got in bad car accidents afer falling asleep at the wheel on their drives home, the guy who had prostate cancer, and the guy who had a hip replacement. They have driven the costs up for our group, so it must be "their" fault.

     

    If I wanted to blame "the union" for it, I suppose I could say that rather than negotiating pay freezes for us so we could put that money toward our health care, that they negotiate a pay CUT in order to increase that %.

     

    So no, there's not really a way to blame the union for spiraling health care costs. It's our own damn fault for having to use our insurance.

  8. Here's a little shocker I found out today.

     

    I have a full time (union) job with regular benefits etc. I knew that our coverage had been creeping downward incrementally, and that now I have a $500 deductable (actually it was 300 last year so I was surprised) with my HMO insurance. In looking over my bills for the little ankle surgery I had last month, I discovered that I'm now only 80% covered for surgery.

     

    All I gotta say is holy shit. I definitely didn't make financial plans for that little surprise. Let this be a lesson to keep track of the erosion of your health care before you get an unpleasant little surprise like the one I got today. Yow.

     

     

    Vote

    Our atty is on retainer, but unless we have a lawsuit going on or something major like that we rarely use him for anything. I do remember his office helping our local to come into compliance with Beck.

     

    Busniess Reps generally take care of most of the "legal" stuff, it's not really rocket science to negotiate a labor contract or represent a worker in discipline or termination cases.

    Vote

    Backstage types.

     

    Yes pretty much everywhere. It didn't used to be that way but people were so woefully underpaid and overworked that they've all opted to unionize over the years. In many cases wages went up 40- 50% and no one's gone out of business over it.

     

    We don't do all the sheds and arenas, but theatres, yes, definitely.

    Vote

    Just so that people are not mislead:

     

    Everyone has access to representation in case of dismissal or discipline or anything else. You do not have to have anything to do with any union for that. This is a "benefit" we all have as Americans and do not have to pay extra for it by joining a union.

     

    What representation? Can you get a free attorney if you think you've been wrongfully terminated? Can you do this without going to court?

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