"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse to the Velveteen Rabbit. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
pol
Oh, and I did ask Maria if she passed on the message to her SO like I asked her to. She raised her voice at me and said, "I don't think that's appropriate for this call." I responded with, "I think it's absolutely appropriate that the emotional cost of your business' decisions be held foremost in everyone's minds when you choose to between any patient and their doctor and refuse to cover requested care, regardless of reason."
Nobody talked for a few seconds after that.
pol
So I have another call tomorrow with just the Anthem rep, who I think at this point I've actively antagonized enough because she _is_ trying to help me, in whatever fashion she can. I'll be _damned_, however, if I give up making this as emotionally charged as I think she can handle. This shit is unacceptable.
Perhaps three doctors all saying "you're wrong" will get them to change their minds. I'm not counting on it, but I'm running out of options.
pol
I also took the time to rub their collective nose in the fact that every insurance company refused to pay for SRS and forced me to cough up $50k out of pocket across two people to get life-saving medical care because their "meta-analysis" said my needs were "cosmetic." That alone was enough to make me not trust their boards of experts. The doctor wanted off the call after that. Literally, that was when he said "I don't think this call is going to get us anywhere."
pol
I think what really made this call special for me is that the disconnect between their position and mine was stark from the outset. They're looking at populations and groups, studying meta-analyses and making decisions based on statistics. Presented with an individual case that clearly violates the norm, their answer was like any good liberal to leap back to their Big Data and proclaim that they did the right thing based on the literature, ignoring what the doctors involved in the case want.
pol
Today's phone call with Anthem went marginally better than yesterday's, in that I got to tell three people that their corporate actions were directly contributing to the lack of trust in the existing system and the growing belief in universal health care. I also got to cut off a medical professional three times with "you're not my wife's doctor, and I don't trust you."
I hope the Director of Behavioral Psych comes down with Herod's Evil.
pol
Today, I told an insurance agent, "I want you to look your significant other in the eye when you get home and tell them that the company for which you work would deny medically necessary care for you for up to 45 days while they decide whether to listen to your doctor over our in-house review board."
Tomorrow, when she calls me back with their behavioral psych expert on the line, I'm going to ask her if she delivered the message like I asked. And then I'm going to tell the doc to do it.
Shit what th' buni says
Keet, an wise one: "Can you imagine the universe in which what we're seeing in the TAS (tool-assisted speedrun) is what's actually happening in the game? What have people got to be thinking?"
Me, a buni: "Bowser's staring out the stained-glass window saying, 'Shit, he just twerked for three minutes and then disappeared backward through the door!'"
{x}
Laying with @ElectricKeet@, listening to one of @emanate's mixes. "Dissolving Time" starts playing. "It's the auditory equivalent of a dude painting with a lens flare."
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@Soreth Ready Player One but I wrote it in 2010 and it has postfurry sex in it.
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