Gartonians? Seriously? Gartonians? Hahahahahahaha!!!!!

How very Lord of The Flies!

*Wipes tears from eyes*

Readers share their experiences of health care in the USA.

A RomLand regular writes:

I grew up visiting the doctor and dentist only when something was wrong. Annual visits just for a physical? No, because even with insurance, the co-pay for three kids was a large chunk of change from a not-large budget. It has taken years of adulthood to break myself of that habit, even partially.

Just after my first year of university, I came down with what I thought was food poisoning while home for the summer break. Spent the day huddled miserably in the bathroom, dry-heaving. My younger brother, the bane of my existence at the time, was sweet to me that day, trying to make me feel better. Did feel marginally better that night, because the heaving stopped, but then it resumed the next morning. My mother, an hourly not salaried employee, called in sick and took me to the Emergency Room of our local hospital.

We arrived before 9am and sat in the waiting room for perhaps an hour, answering questions from a survey form and talking to a nurse or PA. The first thing they wanted to do was a pregnancy test, because they were sure it was an ectopic pregnancy. I was confident that wasn’t the problem, but nothing I said convinced them otherwise, whether it was in the presence of my mother or not. After passing (failing?) the pregnancy test, I was re-examined and they determined I was suffering from acute appendicitis.

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At the Midnight Hour, by Alicia Scott*

* This is an old pseudonym for suspense writer Lisa Gardner, under which she published her first thirteen novels with Harlequin in the early 1990s.

From the waaaaaay back machine (also known as my local library’s used book store ) comes this charming little novel—Ms Scott/Gardner’s fourth published work, in fact. It is also the first of her Guiness Gang quintet, which follow four brothers and their younger sister’s stories.

Current fans of Ms Gardner’s suspense novels will find these earlier efforts to be much lighter on the mystery, and to focus much more on the relationship. Coupled with the restrictions of category romance writing (length, language, etc.), these novels are quite different in style than her more recent releases. Nonetheless, they are quite good on their own terms.

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I know I said I couldn’t be arsed posting about #RomFailGate, but it’s currently 5am, and I’m wide awake. Also, I’m fond of assessing Blog Lovefests that have nothing to do with me, once the dust settles. I do so like stepping onto Mount Moral High Ground, from time to time, to see what it’s like.

Anyway, I finally got round to reading the follow-up blogposts and consequent comments by various people in Blogland re Romfail.

Here are my thoughts, and they aren’t in any particular order:

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Talk about blatant piracy.

This fuckwit here, http://englishbookworm.blogspot.com/, has a whole host of books up, and he’s offering free e-book downloads to the public.

The following titles are included in his never-ending list:
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This week’s dilemma is as follows:

You start dating a guy who seems perfect for you. You have great chemistry, and he makes you laugh a lot.

You’ve been dating for two months, when he reveals to you that he’s a porn star.

He explains that he didn’t tell you right away because he wanted to be sure that your relationship was going somewhere. He tells you that he’s never felt this way about someone before, and he really wants to keep seeing you.

What do you do? Do you keep seeing him, figuring that he’s too good to toss aside because of his job, or do you break up with him, knowing that you couldn’t handle him having sex with lots of other people on camera?

What would you do?

Readers share their experiences of health care in the USA.

A KKB regular wrote:

I will tell you that I understand that we can’t totally overhaul the health care system in the US. But some reforms NEED to be made. When we receive a letter from our provider saying that some medical procedures that are NEEDED, may not be covered, then it’s time to make some changes.

What my wife is going through is horrible. It’s not life threatening, so I can see why someone trying to make a dollar wouldn’t pay all that money for her to be admitted to that hospital. But it still effects her life in such a way that at least one to two days a week she can’t function as a human being. (And selfishly, that effects my son and I, too.)

Now whether it’s life threatening or not, something needs to be done. And besides, if the insurance company won’t cough up the money now for the admittance, they will be later for all of her emergency room visits or other doctor’s appointments to find other ways to take care of the problem. Or they will just drop her (which I don’t think they can do with group coverage like I have at work) and then we are screwed, because she has already been turned down in getting individual health insurance because no company is going to take a loss. They would be paying out more then receiving back in her monthly premiums.

It’s time to realize that health care should be a right, not a privilege, and we need to find a way to change this.

If you would like to share your own health care in America experiences, good or bad, please email me at Hairylemony @ gmail.com

Rescue Me, by Christy Reece

The first in a trilogy of romantic suspense novels, Rescue Me is also Ms Reece’s debut. The books follow three operatives from the shadowy private organization Last Chance Rescue which, oddly enough, specializes in rescuing people (particularly children) when other, public channels, have come up dry. This installment follows one Eden St Claire, LCR operative extraordinaire, and Jordan Montgomery, literally a blast from Eden’s past.

Here is the terribly misleading back cover blurb:

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Readers share their experiences of health care in the USA.

Back in June, a reader wrote:

I am, right now, apparently in the minority of ‘well insured’. And you are right that I don’t want to go to UHC. My fear is that instead of elevating everyone up to ‘well cared for’ (like my family) we’ll get downgraded to ‘what’s the least that can be done for _______?’.

I realize that makes me selfish. But, my husband just had a major heart attack (he was dead @ work and they used the paddles to bring him back). He now has a pacemaker. He’s had cancer 2x in his life and a liver transplant. He knows he cannot ever quit his job (and we pray he always HAS his job). I do not know what he would do if he knew his living would break us. I do not want to find out.

So, I would be all for UHC, IF and ONLY IF it meant everyone was well cared for. Or, if we could pay for our own supplemental insurance that would continue to cover us as well as it does. But, it would still have to be affordable. And it won’t be if companies drop their coverage because ‘the government is taking care of everyone’.

I really don’t know how to fix it.

My sympathy for anyone that has had hellish nurses. I have to give HUGE KUDOS to the nurses, doctors and staff of University Hospital here in Colorado. They were absolutely wonderful with my husband (who was just released and came home today). O

Sorry for being long winded, when I don’t even have an iota of an idea of how to fix things…

If you would like to share your own health care in America experiences, good, or bad, please email me at Hairylemony @ gmail.com

Yeah, I heard about the case of the model who successfully sued Google, in order to get them to reveal the name of an anonymous blogger who’d been mean to her.

Here’s the story from The Times Online:

A Vogue cover girl has won a precedent-setting court battle to unmask an anonymous blogger who called her a “skank” on the internet.

In a case with potentially far-reaching repercussions, Liskula Cohen sought the identity of the blogger who maligned her on the Skanks in NYC blog so that she could sue him or her for defamation.

A Manhattan supreme court judge ruled that she was entitled to the information and ordered Google, which ran the offending blog, to turn it over.

Ms Cohen, a tall, Canadian blonde who has modelled for Giorgio Armani and Versace, went to court after reading the wounding anonymous comments on Google’s Blogger.com.

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