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Bob Davidson

Lowell, et al. -- I know this is posted on the crazy people forum, but I just don't want to take any more abuse from the Tommyrot crowd:

When you wrote about Medicare advantage plans, everyone was negative about dental coverage. I have a Humana PPO that costs $10 a month and includes dental and vision.  I just had two crowns last week -- like others I like to crunch ice and have elderly teeth -- and my out of pocket was $567.  I took this plan because my dentist and PCP are on it and there are lots of specialists I might see in my area.  Is there something I'm missing or do I just have a good deal?

David Cordell

Bob D,

My Medicare-supplement-equivalent is actually a continuation of my UT (Blue Cross) coverage. That is, whatever Medicare doesn't cover is covered by UT, and it is a "free" benefit as a qualified retiree.

Martha has a Humana supplement (Medigap) that is about $150 per month. We pay $116 per month (total for both of us) for Delta Dental Plus coverage, which gives very good coverage and a wide selection of dentists. We use classmate/dentist Bob Cederberg. We also have Superior Vision Plus coverage through the University for a total of $12 per month. It covers frames up to $169, which is far more than I typically pay.

So, between the two of us, we pay for Medicare part B plus about $280 per month for very good coverage across the board.

My concern with Advantage/replacement plans relates to availability. It's fine if your PCP accepts it, but if you have a serious issue, your choices are limited and it may lead to longer wait times. I consider the extra that I pay as "insurance insurance".

ADDENDUM:

Prescriptions are covered under my UT plan but Martha pays $15 per month for Medicare part D (prescriptions).

Rick Wilber

Jim Bedwell

Chief Toenails,

Sorry, when I see you, since I don't drink, I can DRIVE, but not only will I never marry again, but also I can't see having another relationship frankly. I am so FREE and HAPPY now!!!! So you'll be doing a solo carousing for chicks!! hahahahaha!!!

Chief Jimi Bob

Jim Bedwell

Rick Wilber,

Yeah, the hospitals need the beds for the China virus uptick due to YOUR PRESIDENT'S SUPER-SPREADER EVENT AT THE BORDER!!

Not only do the Dems not care A WHIT about Afghanis, American soldiers, policemen (and HilLIARy is actively hostile toward uniforms, except for the non-visible, no-clothes variety rampant especially in the current HARRIS/BIDEN/ADNAUSEUM IMPERIAL MARXIST REGIME), minorities, illegal aliens, etc. but they also don't care ANYTHING about you either!

Please remember ALWAYS with the Dems, the ONLY things they care about are, in this unvarying order:

1) number 1

2) their now Marxist party

Jim Bedwell

Last night at Guns N Roses, I sat next to a couple (he said he was 50) who have grown up here. I told him I hoped to move to Tennessee. He said they were escaping to South Dakota; he said they just couldn't stand it around here anymore. He said he wasn't a liberal - DUH!

Also I've seen a couple of liberal women on TV lately bemoaning the state of their 'beautiful city" Portland, and asking for more police. Hey, for all you Marxists, eventually they're coming for you too, unless you're in the very highest levels of the Satanic setup (you think HilLIARy is sweating ANY of the current mess? AS IF!!); there is some justice, even in this fallen world.

Saw my 3rd rat on a Portland street yesterday. I could have killed it maybe but I thought, "No, he's home". The 3 rats I've seen have all been in or near downtown and all within the last 3-4 years (as the homelessness crisis has steadily worsened, like everything else wherever Marxist governance is found - SO PREDICTABLE!!). You should see some of the stupidity they've done on mini important thoroughfares - taken what should be 2 lanes in both directions and now have 1 bike path (both sides I think - can't remember) and 1 vehicle lane on each side, often with speed bumps!

Doubt I'll ever return to the Pacific Northwest or California for that matter - glad I've seen over the decades most of what I wanted to - never made it to Yosemite or Crater Lake...finally saw Mt. St. Helens last month - you can see how they never found that geologist David Johnston who was on that crest in the middle of the horizontal blast zone when he shouted, "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" The observatory there that's named after him (closed for covid; gift shop open) is on that crest and it sure doesn't seem like 7 miles to the open volcano on that climactic north side but yes, those really are tiny little TREES way down there approaching that monster! The thing I was surprised about most though was that after 40+ years, I figured there would be mostly vegetation filling it all in, but no, while yes, there's some vegetation and trees, it still looks like a disaster zone, complete with old gray tree trunks in places, including the hilltops BEHIND us way on top. The 50+ mile drive (on a good road) east from I-5 to the observatory at the end of the road has TONS of beautiful treed areas so it's a nice drive there, the last half of which is the approach to the mountain and you also will see the (empty or almost in summer) broad Toutle River valley where all the trees/mess flowed rambunctiously. In conclusion, AWESOME!

Wayne Gary

Bob D.

Sandra Tommy and Lowell were speaking out of ignorance on the dental coverage with Medicare Advantage.  Each company have different coverage and costs.  I get my United Healthcare PPO Advantage with no additional cost over the $145 /mo Medicare B cost and I get the prescription coverage.

I find it helpful to talk to a Medicare advisor each year to look at the many plans available.

Wayne Gary

David, Et AL

Alumniclass.com has the 67 and 68 yearbooks on their site. You can view for free.

/www.alumniclass.com/richardson-high-school-eagles-tx

I do have all 3 of my yearbooks.

Lowell Tuttle

Bob,  I think that sounds about right. Crown with no insurance is about 500 a piece.   I'll have that after the 8600 deal on 9 7.    I don't go with Advantage Plans, I have supplemental plan   I think your Humana dental option has an annual max of probably 1000 to 1500.   They also have different pay amounts in or out or network.   A 1500 a year max dental plan for my wife and I would be about 130 to 140 a month.   Not too bad...But it wouldn't cover my two implants and extraction beyond the 1500 I would have.  I have decided just to do one tooth.   Save the other 4300 as it is the lower back molar...The fear there is the upper molar will grow down as nothing to stop it from doing so.   Course, at almost 70 how much more can it grow\?   Also, Cederberg was nice enough to give me info on UTHSD?  UT dental school, where he was dean for 7 years until 4 years ago...Still might go that route.   

But I also have a MRI on my neck, and EMG at the neurologist's office (peripheral neuropath is driving me crazy, feet, legs, and left hand.   A surgical consultant with back guy, and a colonoscopy scheduled.

But I did play in the Member memer this past weekend and won my flight.   So all not too bad.   

Physical therapy exercises as well as cycling 6-7 miles a day (bike riding doesn't hurt...walking/standing does.

There are a lot of senior medicare advantage plans and supplement plans out there....An article in the  Chronicle from it's main business writer this morning.   I subscribe.   If you want to read it, let me know...

I have reasons for wanting the supplement, but my initial reason to switch from advantage plan to supplemental after one year on medicare was in error.   I was in the hospital on emergency and thought I had to get out before being admitted as my hospital I was in was not my network.   So, I went home before the specialist could schedule more MRI's.   It turns out, the hospital WAS in my network, just no one could answer that question at the hospital.   Seems stupid in hind sight...

Now I am in a supplement which after 4 years being in, they waiveh all deductibles and co pays.   It is 180 a month though.   It makes me want to postpone stuff until after 1 1 22....if I make it that long.

Jim Bedwell

Kurt,

I'm with you! Especially for an ex IT worker, I am PATHETICALLY low-tech. I just now couldn't figure out how to delete my non-picture image from my posts like you have!!! I firmly believe for decades now that the EGGHEADS from Harvard & MIT or wherever that created the OTHERWISE fantastic microcomputer revolution could have used a SINGLE good course on the now perpetual problem of the man-machine interface, and how to stay out rather than not being able to get out.

Jim Bedwell

Lowell,

Check out the ONE AND ONLY Jennifer Batten in this one - YOU WILL LOVE IT!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpQykxuwABg

Also there's a Japanese-American uke player Jake Shimabukoro from Hawaii who's an ace. I saw him once. I'm just into the electric guitar/instruments so much more - LOVE Leo Kottke though. Not into ukes. Jake played for the Clintons I think when he was Prez; I know he played for the Queen of England before.

David Cordell

Lance, what did I say to indicate that I have an HMO? All forms of medical/health insurance Martha and I have are PPO.

Regarding risk tolerance, I have more than 80-85% of my retirement money in equities, which is way higher than would be recommended for a 70-year-old. (I really should back off that high percentage before the "correction" occurs.) 

I don't choose to put my money in digital currencies because they are sheer speculations, not investments. 

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Just surfing around on the internet, and saw only a couple of hours ago, that Pelosi and Biden have been on the phone tonight talking and "burning up the wires" about how THEY MUST get a couple of lines in the big 3-6 trillion dollar bill coming up soon before Congress for a vote.  They want to have an "absolutely NO Voting ID card," and they want to have "amnesty legalization for migrants" in the package.  They evidently agree that those two items MUST be included in the huge package deal, as they think those line items are A MUST. 

THAT is what they are discussing tonight, never-mind the crisis in Afghanistan concerning American citizens being able to get out of that awful country.

Priorities are pressing, you know!   Power for the Democrats is their number one goal!!! 

Citizens in peril be damned!

Steve Keene

Janalu, David and Bob D.:

It is so nice to post on a site that does not contain the constant sophistry of fallacious arguments from every poster, Lance being the exception, of course.

David:

A financial whiz advised me to sell my bitcoin and etherium for cash to hold for an inevitable crash in the markets.  My response was "Why would I sell a perfectly designed currency whose value is maintained by scarcity in its design and useful applications of internet exchange for something as precarious as a U.S. dollar which is propped up by government bureaucrats with questionable ethics and conflicts of interest and backed by thin air and a promise, of which the government has provided ample evidence that it never intends to keep and, in fact, is incapable of keeping?"

Lowell Tuttle

Jim, I followed her you tube vid's over to her and Michael Jackson doing "Beat It" live.   Quite a performer..and that was 1992...

Wayne Gary

Lance,

Tommy has stated he does not believe in God but he must believe in the "weed trinity": Tommy/Sue/Ron S.

Steve Keene

Wayne,

Tommy is one of those seeds that were cast in good ground and the tares(weeds) grew up and choked them with the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches.

Wayne Gary

I was just watching and old "Hee Haw" show and saw this clogging group.  Fun to watch.

Jim Bedwell

Sorry, Wayne, my schedule is too clogged up with watching the latest Dem catastrophe to see that dance video.

Jim Bedwell

Lowell,

I'm a big Fleetwood Mac fan, pre-pop-success, i.e., when they had the 3 blues guitarists. Here's one with the late Danny Kirwan 1950-2018 singing and doing the leading licks with the late Peter Green 1946-2020 doing the responding ones as they trade licks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW1Jy-jWx9Y&list=RDMMsh9bYPb6tkY&index=26

Also here's one AFTER Peter Green left that I like a lot from "Kiln House", that EXCELLENT transition album with Kirwan and their excellent slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer (Elmore James was his hero) - also Christine (Perfect) McVie was a member of the group by this time, or at least was contributing. This one again has Kirwan doing the vocals - not sure about the guitar breakdown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzReLGYIJZc&list=RDMMsh9bYPb6tkY&index=3

Jim Bedwell

A la Obama's receiving his Nobel Peace Prize just for running his worthless mouth BEFORE he took office, I think this year the late Saul Alinsky (yet another disobedient Jew) should be nominated, elected unanimously, and frankly worshipped from now on (required) for TEACHER OF THE MILLENNIUM, and just forget about considering anybody else from now into eternity. The students of his book "Rules for Radicals", except for all the stupid blunders along the way, but that can all be swept under the rug later (you watch), anyway his students are despite that, following his prescription for eventual Marxist success SO WELL!! The only difference between Obama & Alinsky in this is that Alinsky did a GREAT job achieving his goals whereas Obama........and yet.....look what Obama is "achieving" through his former & our current dunce - after all, what are the odds now that Obama is really the one calling all the shots (Joe & Kamala are going to object to that? I don't think so)!!!

Here's one thing the Dems know IN SPADES:

"For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret." (Ephesians 5:12)

Jim Bedwell

Charlie Watts died today. I LOVE the way he stayed faithful to his wife of 57 years, how unlike the others.

David Wier

Jim B: 

Jennifer Batten - not bad! It's hard to believe someone other than me or someone in my generation can hit all those songs from different eras. I remember all but a couple of the later guitarists. 

Interesting note, in case you didn't know - Eddie Van Halen played the original stuff on Jackson's recording - just not when Michael was on tour.

David Wier

Again: Jim B:

It's really getting thinner out there, musically at least. This year:

Paul Cotton, Rusty Young (both from Poco), Gerry Marsden (Gerry & Pacemakers), Mike Mitchell (The Kingsmen), B.J. Thomas, Lloyd Price, Dusty Hill, Don Everly, Tom T. Hall, Robby Steinhardt (Kansas) and now Charlie Watts. 

Then, of course, earlier on, there were:

Gene Summers (local Rock-a-Billy and cover artist. I played with him for several years), Mary Wilson (The Supremes), Chick Corea (jazz) and Phil Spector

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

I just heard  Texas' John Ratcliffe, former Director of National Intelligence, say on Laura Ingraham's TV show, that he thinks China is seeing what Biden has done in Afghanistan, and they are estimating what they need to do in the next three years before a strong, new president comes into office.

Yep!  They won't be bumbling and fumbling around.  I'm sure they already have their plan ready to roll.

As Biden said recently before his inauguration, "It's gonna be a long dark winter, but he was talking about Covid."