Brain overflowing with health insurance laws, rules, and regulations. Ugh.
Of note, Georgia is one of the dozen or so states that does not have a high risk healthcare pool, although there’s currently a bill awaiting a vote in the Senate Rules Committee, HB1359 – Georgia Assignment Pool Underwriting Authority, to pass such a plan. Apparently, some businesses and organizations like the Georgia Retail Association, UPS, and BellSouth are working to oppose it because it would impact large businesses, who would be required to help subsidize it.
Feh.
We did determine that our current HMO is willing to keep covering us under a “conversion” healthcare plan after my COBRA expires. Although I’m still unclear as to whether this conversion policy would be a group plan–a group of “1”–or an individual one, and I dearly want to transition to another a group plan if at all possible. However, there would be no prescription drug provisions, which is problematic since both fosteronfilm and I are on long-term prescription meds, and the monthly premium would increase by a third again from what we’re already paying for COBRA, which is egregiously expensive as is.
Oof. Well, it’s a start.
Writing Stuff
On his blog, fellow Phobos Award-winner James Maxey had really nice things to say about “Souls of Living Wood” in the Modern Magic anthology (of which we’re TOC-mates).
Happy blurbage:
“wow, this was a terrific story . . . It’s ideas like this that draw me to science fiction and fantasy . . . Even better, Eugie takes this original idea and builds a terrific, moving story around it. Sometimes, great ideas get stuck in stories that don’t live up to their promise, but Eugie follows through with lovely writing, a captivating plot, and strong performances from the other characters in the story, all of whom come to life with an amazing economy of words.”
Also saw that Rich Horton reviewed the spring issue of Oceans of the Mind in the May issue of Locus. (I really need to subscribe to Locus, dammit.) Anyone out there have a copy it? I’m dying to know if Rich said anything about my story, “The Few, the Proud, the Leech Corps.”
Editing:
– Editing passes and final polish completed on the freelance gig. Product sent off, and I await payment.
Received:
– Payment from Dragonfly Spirit for “A Patch of Jewels in the Sky.” Yay!
– 34-day “Dear Writer” from Orchid. But I have to admit that their form letter is pretty upbeat. They encourage writers to keep at it, informing us that the average story is rejected 25 or more times before being accepted (which, according to that figure, puts me way above the bell curve, averaging 13), and that both C.S. Lewis and Ray Bradbury were rejected more than 800 times before making their first sale.
This was for a story I wrote after reading a lot of Kurt Vonnegut, and my style was heavily influenced thereof. It’s a surreal, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, quasi-literary, experimental piece with genre overtones. I’ve gotten mixed responses from genre pubs who typically like the style and voice, but think the narrative’s too unfocused. So now I’m trying literary markets, since I’ve found them to be concerned far more about style and care less about narrative cohesion. But I have an inkling that the genre elements might be touch-of-deathie for them. Foo.
I’m getting major “I need a sale!” twitches. It’s been almost a month since my last one.
knowledge like that inspires me to keep at it as a writer.
thanks.
No problemo. I’m just passing along the gee whiz.
Ooh, what a great review! Congratulations! 😀
Thanks, Maggie! I was pretty tickled to read James’s post.
Look into phrma.org under “Patient Assistance Programs”. The paperwork is horrendus (due to the anti-trust laws, the industry can’t implement a “single-sign-up”) but, as a struggling writer, you’ll probably qualify for free or almost-free drugs.
My company is one of the groups that administers the program and I was amazed at how generous the programs are. For example: If you make less than $20K/yr, you can get 10 free hits of Viagra a month.
Ooo! Me likie free drugs! Mega thanks for passing along this info.
Oh, Eugie, I love Souls of Living Wood! When is the anthology going to be out? I keep checking Amazon, but they say it’s not available yet.
It was released pretty recently (finally). It’s now available at Amazon.com now, though. Convenient linkie: Modern Magic: Tales of Fantasy and Horror
Y’ know, every time I read about your health care problems, I am SO GLAD I live in Australia where we have decent, free health care, and all my medications are made cheaper by the PBS (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme).
But we are heading for a crisis here too- many private hospitals, where people with health insurance can go to get elective procedures done quicker, are closing down, putting more burden on the public system. Not enough profit in private hospitals, apparently. And the PBS threatens to blow out each year as more and more meds are added, and a lot of the drug manufacturers hate it because they can’t charge what they want for meds.
any private hospitals, where people with health insurance can go to get elective procedures done quicker, are closing down,
Weirdly, we’re having the opposite problem. Many public hospitals are closing down because there isnt’ enough funding for them. And religious non-profit hospitals do not offer anything that conflicts with the agenas of their faiths. So we are seeing more private hospitals, which will not serve anyone without insurance.
And pharmaceutical companies are evil, so I like to see them suffer.