Lee Shayler’s Blindness Walk

There have been many articles and news items recently about Highlands Ranch resident Lee Shayler’s charity walk for blindness:

Highlands Ranch Herald: Blind man on a 1,000-mile quest

9News TV: Blind man to walk 1 mph for 1,000 straight hours

YourHub Staff Stories: Walking to fight blindness

I worked with Lee in the IT biz many many years ago here in Denver and I’m sorry to hear his disease has progressed so much.

Although there are endless causes to donate to, “assistance begins at home”, and I encourage everyone to donate any amount they can to this local resident who is one of us.

Lee’s website for info and donations is www.mEyeWalk.com.

Keep up the fight and great effort, Lee.  As they say in England, “Well Done!”.

Congressmen Coffman, Town Hall, My Health Insurance

I finally got off my lazy behind and attended a Feb. 16th Town Hall Meeting hosted by our 6th District U.S. Congressman Mike Coffman.  Admittedly I had selfish motives as I wanted to express my concerns about recent changes in my insurance premiums.  When the microphone came to me my comments were, to paraphrase:

“This is about health insurance.  I am a free market and limited government person, and I loathe the current health care legislation attempting to be passed in Congress.

There have been reports in the news in the last week or two about Anthem Blue Cross Insurance in California raising insurance premiums 34% this year.  Secretary of Health Katherine Sebelius is looking into it as this is considered an unconscionable increase, and the company has delayed the increase as a result of the bad press.

My health insurance premiums for this year have been raised ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE PERCENT, from $235 per month to $563 per month, and I haven’t heard a whisper in the news.

This increase is for the same plan I had last year.  It isn’t even a “Cadillac” plan, though I feel like I’m buying someone in the insurance industry a Cadillac.  This is health care run amok.

I’d be grateful if you would review this increase data I have for you, and if you have the opportunity please pass it on to Secretary Sebelius.  Thank you.”

I did not expect a specific solution.  I just wanted Mike and others to know about the situation.  Mike’s response to me and to other health care queries throughout the evening were consistent with my own opinions.  We need free market solutions, health care portability, and cross-state competition and availability of health insurance plan choices.  The current proposed health care legislation may well be illegal to mandate, or force, individuals to obtain health insurance.  The proposed attempt to pass the legislation in piece-meal fashion via Budget Reconciliation may also be illegal.

I’m very much opposed to government control of anything, including health care, and I’m very frustrated with a free market industry (Aetna Insurance in my case) that contracts to assist you with the delicate and personal issue of your health and then increases your premium by a huge multiple with a few weeks, take it or leave it, notice.  I essentially had no choice but to take the single, expensive, option offered, or be without health care.  (FYI it is a company provided retirement medical plan, from which I will be dropped anyway when I turn 65 in a year.)  I will be investigating other insurance plans in the meantime, though I suspect it may be a difficult search due to my successful prostate cancer surgery last year.  Also in the meantime I plan to pursue the usual letter-writing campaign expressing my dissatisfaction.

One thing that irks me most is that I have paid into the company provided plan (different insurers over the years, negotiated by the company) for over 24 years.  All well and good when I was younger, healthier, and less expensive to the insurance companies.  Now that I’m on pre-65 retiree medical (and still paying premiums) they have one more year to extract a pound of flesh from me.

Of course none of this is likely to bring a tear to the many who have NO insurance at all.

Caught between big brother, I’ll-run-your-life, government, and a cut-throat “your money, or/AND your life” insurance industry, a rock and a hard place have never looked so unwelcoming.

By the way, the Town Hall Meeting was well attended and informative.  Mike Coffman is a GREAT representative and I trust we will keep him in office for as long as he wishes to be there.  He spoke well on the many issues brought before him, and his recurring themes are limited government, self-responsibility, and individual freedom.

Muslims Unite! Down with terrorism!

I rarely agree with anything NYT opinionist Thomas Friedman says, including some of the things in his piece Father Knows Best,  but he expressed something I was discussing with a friend just yesterday and anyone who agrees with me can’t be all bad.  He stated:

“…no laws or walls we put up will ever be sufficient to protect us unless the Arab and Muslim societies from whence these suicide bombers emerge erect political, religious and moral restraints as well — starting by shaming suicide bombers and naming their actions “murder,” not “martyrdom.””

IMO, until the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world get sufficiently outraged at the radical terrorists amongst them, and express that outrage through anti-terrorist activity and condemnation, then they can never be considered a peace-loving people who want to live with us rather than against us.

Friedman concludes, and I concur:

“Every faith has its violent extreme. The West is not immune. It’s all about how the center deals with it. Does it tolerate it, isolate it or shame it? The jihadists are a security problem for our system. But they are a political and moral problem for the Arab-Muslim system. If they won’t address this problem for us, I truly hope they will do it for themselves. Eventually, we’ll find a way to keep most jihadists off our planes and out of our volleyball games — but they will have to live with them.”

DEMS head for the door??

BREAKING NEWS, as they say.  I was not overly surprised when I read Senator Dodd Will Not Seek Re-election, Democrats Say in the NYT early this morning.  In addition to his many political problems he underwent prostate cancer surgery last summer, as I did in September.

However, when I next read the blazing front page headline Ritter to withdraw from Colorado governor's race in the morning Denver Post today, oooooh, I wondered what was up.

Are Democrats falling on their altruistic sword for the sake of self-sacrifice and the good of the people?  IMO they are usually willing to sacrifice others for their agendas but it is uncharacteristic to sacrifice their own political careers.  Of course I’m always willing to wish (political) death to these (Euro-Socialist) infidels, but is there a greater plot afoot?

I find it odd that Democrats, holding unprecedented power in national and state governments, would lose self-confidence so quickly and seek an exit.  I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but is it a Communist Plot (Euro-Socialist, actually) to approve all the current socialist agendas, such as the national health care mandate, and then make room for new Democratic candidates who can thus say “it wasn’t me that approved those things, you can trust me!”?

I for one will be staying tuned and watching this closely.

Be not complacent, any of you who still advocate individual freedom, self-responsibility, and the PURSUIT of life, liberty, and happiness.  It isn’t over until we Vote The Democrats Out Of Office.