Healthcare in America: The Fix, pt. 6

Good day, family and friends!

Today, we're going to look at that evil competition thing.  I use the word "evil" because that's how the progressive socialists view competition, and that is how competition is being taught to our children in many public schools these days.  Okay, maybe they don't call it "evil," but they do constantly disparage competition through both word and example.  But I will go into that in more detail in a future post.  Right now, I want to focus on how competition can make our current healthcare system better.

The first way would be to restore what our Founders believed to be one of the most fundamental aspects of the USA: that our Republic is a union of (currently 50) individual states, not a nation-state divided into administrative regions.  The Xth Amendment to the Constitution states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  In simple terms, it says that, if the Constitution doesn't specifically say the Federal Government has jurisdiction over something, then the citizens of each State can make their own decisions about how to handle a particular subject.  In other words, the States were to be allowed to have their own community standards, their own 'flavor,' as long as what they did did not violate the Constitution.  The Liberty of American citizens allowed them to 'vote with their feet' on the environments of the individual States; i.e. they were free to up and move themselves and their businesses out of States with oppressive or untenable environments and go to States that have a more favorable environment without having to apply for permission or visas.  The only requirement was that they were expected to follow the local laws of their new home.

Over the last 40 years, however, there have been incremental steps toward marginalizing the Xth Amendment and homogenizing the States until they are indistinguishable, one from the other.  As our country has been slowly marched toward an all-powerful central national government, the States have been forced into a 'one size fits all' mentality in many issues.  Every time one of our 'political heroes' calls for us to 'level the playing field' or 'lower the bar' to correct some perceived inequity, it ends up as a lowering of standards and an attempt to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

You are probably asking, "What does this Civics lesson have to do with Healthcare?"  Well, over the last 75 - 80 years, the professional political class that has arisen in our Republic has stifled competition in both healthcare coverage and delivery in pretty much every State.  Lobbyists have managed to get laws passed in each State that favors only a handful of the hundreds of insurance companies. (Look back at my analysis of the Affordability of Healthcare.)  And remember what the State of New York did to Dr. Muney when he tried to offer his patients a low-cost subscription service?  What We the People need to do is make it clear to our representatives in government that we are tired of them pandering to special interest groups and that they need to start representing the People and upholding the Constitution.  What this means to Healthcare is an end to special-interest set-asides and corporate welfare that stifles competition.  The extent of government interference in any commerce venture should be limited to these questions:

1. "Do any of the tenets of the contract or business agreement put public safety or health in jeopardy?"
2. "Do the contractual obligations defined in the contract or business agreement violate the Constitution or any Laws?"
3. "Have any of the parties in this contract violated the terms of the contract?"

Beyond that, the various levels of government have no business interfering in what is essentially a matter of Commerce; i.e. the relationship between a citizen, their insurance company, and the healthcare providers.  If this were the environment in which the healthcare industry were allowed to reside, it would thrive and we would probably see healthcare costs drop by at least 17%, possibly as much as 27%.  Getting rid of special-interest set-asides would permit competition amongst all of the medical insurance providers in every State.

When this sort of open competition is in place, the Citizens would once again be able to "vote with their feet" and the State with the best, most cost-effective offerings would be the winner.

Next time, more on Competition.

Until then, best regards...



© James P. Rice 2011, 2014

Rant Time! pt. 2

Good day, family and friends!  Let's jump in and see if I can finish this rant I started in May 2011 ...

·  Family (continued): 

My oldest daughter has been burdened with the lion’s share of our family’s medical issues.  Starting when she was in middle school, she has suffered from repeat, chronic UTI’s, migraines, and sinus infections that led to two surgeries.  When she hit high school, she continued to suffer from these things, but the migraines got worse and she ended up with Cancer (and more surgeries).  On top of this, her various maladies and their treatments led to her developing mental issues that ultimately led to a quack mixing the wrong medications within her and, as a result, she now has to deal with periodic seizures for the rest of her life. 

I love both of my daughters unconditionally.  However, I do not have to like the things they do.  For the most part, I have no problems with my youngest.  She is basically a ‘mini-Me.’  My oldest, however, is a huge source of stress for me.  The way she acts because of the mental issues she developed, added to her anarcho-liberal political philosophy, makes it impossible for her and me to live under the same roof.  We have actually had some serious, screaming fights that ended up with more than one door being slammed.  Some of these have been severe enough that I would find myself wishing that she was just completely out of my life.  Then I would sink into a deep depression, condemning myself for daring to think that about my own child.  Out of shame, I would inevitably back off and become passive around her which would inevitably lead to her treating me more and more poorly until I was nothing more than an indentured servant to her which would lead to me finally blowing up and having a serious, screaming fight.  It has been the epitome of a vicious circle.

So, there you are.  The primary points of stress that have fed my depression.  And, of course, all of these things have led to issues with my own health.

In late May 2010, I’d been feeling run down and noticed that, no matter how long I slept, I would wake up feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all,  So, I went to a doctor who sent me to a Neurologist who did tests and took scans and determined that I didn’t have any cancers or tumors, so he had me do a sleep study.  They determined that I had severe Sleep Apnea (I was actually waking up over 80 times per hour.  Basically, I was only sleeping for about 40 – 45 seconds at a time.  So, in July 2010, I began sleeping with a C-PAP machine.

It made quite a difference.  After the first 90 days, I was only waking up an average of 3 times per night, not per hour.  I was finally getting good REM sleep.  I started feeling better.  During this time I also finally found my “Happy Place.”

Everyone has a “Happy Place.”  For some, it is just a pleasant image in their imagination they use when they need to calm down.  For some, it was a place they visited once upon a time that provides them with warm, pleasant memories.  For a small, lucky percentage of the population, it is an actual place to which they can occasionally retreat to revive their bodies, minds, and spirits.  As I mentioned, I started taking the occasional acting gig in August 2008 to bring a few bucks into the household until I got a “real” job.  In May 2010, my wife and youngest daughter saw that the Texas Renaissance Festival was holding auditions for their Performance Company.  They talked me into auditioning.  At the time, I was under the impression that all the performers at all renaissance festivals supplied their own period costumes.  The only ‘garb’ I had was a set of black robes that could be used as either a wizard or medieval priest, depending on how it is accessorized.  So, I auditioned to be just a ‘roaming priest’ for TRF.  I was absolutely stunned when the Producer for TRF called me and offered me the role of ‘King of Germany.’  I cheerfully accepted, not knowing what I was really getting into.

From the first days of rehearsals at TRF, I had a feeling of ‘home.’  With the exception of the Drama Club in high school, I cannot remember any place or group that has so quickly made me feel such a sense of belonging down to the very core of my being.  By the end of the 2010 season at TRF, I knew I had well and truly found my “Happy Place.”  What does this have to do with my health, you may be wondering?  Well, I’ll tell you.

Working at the Texas Renaissance Festival is a labor of love.  Believe me, I ain’t doing it for the money!  My role at TRF and all of my Faire Family is basically a form of psychological therapy for me.  For 3½ months a year (rehearsals and performances), I am in a place whose very existence lifts my spirit, provides me with a basic physical workout, and keeps me outside, bringing joy to peoples’ lives.  Don’t get me wrong: it is hard work.  Short of lightning, floods, sleet, or fire, we are out there performing; in temperatures ranging from 113 Degrees to 25 Degrees Fahrenheit, in conditions from glaring sun to heavy rain, for up to 12 hours each day.  And I am sad every year when the Faire season ends.

Between my C-PAP and TRF, I was feeling better than I had for some time.  I still had my periodic “black days,” when what I now know is full-blown Depression hits the hardest (such as the day I started this Rant), By the end of my second Season at TRF (Dec 2011), I was 69 pounds lighter than I’d been on the day I originally auditioned.  However, by March 2012, I had regained 40 of those lost pounds.  I was starting to wake feeling unrested again.  I had my C-PAP checked out.  It was working properly and showed I was still only waking up 3 – 4 times per night.  Then, in April, a blood test showed that my Thyroid had decided to call it quits.  As one of my doctors put it, with my Thyroid MIA, I could go outside and eat nothing but grass and I’ll keep gaining weight.

So, I was placed on Thyroid Replacement Therapy: a little pill that I have to take at the same time every day for the rest of my life.  But, it will still be exponentially more difficult now for me to lose weight.  Add to that the problem that I have hit a plateau with my Apnea and my mental condition started to deteriorate.  The 2012 Faire season (Aug – Nov 2012) gave me a little lift, but I was still slipping into my “black days” more and more often.  The final straw was when I went through my records and determined that, as of 31 December 2012, I had submitted 1104 applications for employment, had only 39 primary interviews, 7 second interviews, and no ‘regular’ job.  In 4½ years, I have only been able to get the occasional acting gig, temp job, seasonal job, or short-term contract.  By the end of January 2013, I finally admitted that I could no longer handle this by myself.  So, I was put in contact with a Counselor through my wife’s employer’s Employee Assistance Program.

Through the EAP, each of us in the family are entitled to 8 no-cost Counseling sessions each year.  So, I began to speak with a Counselor who, after the third session, was sure I was suffering from Major Depression with Severe Anxiety.  She referred me to a psychiatrist who was finally able to see me at the end of April 2013.  He put me on a medication that would treat both my depression and my chronic pain.  It helped a little, but I always felt like I was being ‘numbed;’ that my physical and mental pain was just being held at bay and not being dealt with.  Everything finally came to a head in August of 2013.

My various doctors and I had determined that my mental state (most likely my Anxiety) was keeping me from getting a good, deep REM sleep at night, even with the C-PAP.  This was actually feeding the Depression and Anxiety.  Add to that the stress of having my oldest daughter and her son living under our roof again and a strange side effect of my anti-depression/pain medicine, and it all became too much (it appears that the medicine I was taking starts out by making the user a little drowsy [I felt like a zombie the first day], then flips its effects after 8 – 10 days and instead makes the user jittery.  After that first day, I started taking the medicine at night, just before bed.  Is it any wonder I wasn’t getting REM sleep?).  On 20 August 2013, I completely blew a gasket and make a vague threat about ending my life. 

Always before, my Depression had led me to just wish that all the pain … physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual … would just end.  It was what my counselor and my psychiatrist both called “passive terminal thoughts.”  That night, it was different.  For the first time in my existence, I went from saying, “I wish I’d just die,” to, “I should just kill myself.”  My wonderful wife was frightened.  She recognized that this was a major shift in my thinking.  So she stayed with me and helped me to calm down.  I ended up going to a local ER and told them what happened, spoke with one of their mental health counselors, and together with him and my wife, determined that I needed to spend a few days in a mental health facility.  I ended up spending a week there.

I’m not going to go into details other than to say that I was introduced to DBT therapy, which has helped me tremendously, and that whenever I would go over with any of the staff or other patients what I had been experiencing over the previous 4 – 5 years, every one of them said, “I would never have lasted as long as you did.  I would have ended up in here 2 years ago!”  Many people in my life over the last half-century have tried to tell me I’m something special.  I always pointed to my failures as proof that I wasn’t.  It was good to have people who did not love me or have any sort of vested interest in me telling me how special I am; telling me how tough and resilient I have been up until now, and telling me it’s okay if I let things affect me and wash through me, as long as I don’t let them keep me down.

Now, here I am.  It’s March 2014, two years and ten months since I began this Rant.  I found it to be just as relevant now as it was when I began it in May 2011, possibly even more so.  My stay in the hospital helped me to balance out and regulate all of my various medications and gave me tools to use with my mental health issues.  As of 1 January 2014, I am up to 1217 submitted applications, but no job.  After a 3-week hiatus, we have electricity again in our home, but our refrigerator gave up the ghost a bit over a year ago, and our HVAC system quit 3 years ago and needs to be completely replaced (lowest bid so far is $4200).  I am back to ‘putting on my brave face’ for most of the public.  If anyone discovers our home situation, I shrug and say, “Eh.  I’m a Survivor.”  Day by day, I pray for an end to our travails so that my wife won’t have to live like this any longer.  I continue to work with anyone I can find to see what I am doing wrong, to tweak my resume, to get advice on programs that might allow me to retrain for a new job.  I haven’t given up, not by a long shot.  I thank God that He has blessed me with special people in my life, from my Faire Family to a good friend who is letting me help him start a new business, and in return letting me get training on new business applications to make myself more marketable, who have all worked to help my family and me through this ‘rough patch.’  If you are one of those people and are reading this, “thank you” does not even begin to express the appreciation I feel for all you have done.  God bless you all.

Until next time, best regards...

© James P. Rice 2011, 2014

Rant Time!

Good evening, family and friends!

Well, it's been almost 3 years since my last post.  I actually found this rant that I'd started back in May 2011 and never finished, so I'd like to go ahead and post it now.  I don't have internet at home, but I'm going to try to get this thing going on at least a semi-regular basis again and tie up some loose ends.  So, from May 2011, here is a nice, big rant ...


I am Depressed.

I'm not "down" or "bummed" or "blue" or "feeling low." I am out-and-out depressed.

I was originally diagnosed as being "borderline clinically depressed" in 1993, though I believe I've been experiencing this level of depression off and on since at least 1978.

I'm part of one of the last generations to be told to "man up and tough it out." We weren't taught that we were blameless victims...that if we didn't make the effort to behave at school, it was because we needed a 'happy pill'. Instead, we were taught that life is full of ups and downs; that for every joy there is a sorrow, for every high there is a low; that there are certain standards of behavior that must be met in spite of our mood. We were taught that part of growing up and becoming an adult is learning how to move on and function in spite of feeling a bit melancholy. That is why talking about this is so hard for so many people my age. Hell, I may not even post this after I write it.

So, what has me so depressed? It isn't any one thing. Its a whole bunch of things that have been piling and piling up on top of me for quite some time now. Being a very philosophic and spiritual individual, I am constantly self-assessing to determine what I did to get into the situation in which I currently find myself. (Trust me...there is NO ONE more critical of me than me!) Time and time again I come to the conclusion that, short of violating my core principles and going over to the 'dark side,' there is nothing different I could have done to avoid being where I am now. I have even consulted with several different counselors...both financial and mental health...who, after reviewing our actions that led up to the present, have all concluded that we did everything right. What are some of these 'things' we did right? Let's look at a few...

Employment: I lost my most recent 'real' job in June 2008. I did not apply for unemployment until August 2008 because I did not think I would be out of work that long. Instead, while continuing to search for a full time position...or even multiple part time positions...I began taking acting gigs as a way to make a couple of dollars here and there. For 145 weeks, I applied for at least 3 jobs each week. Some weeks, 5 - 7 applications. A couple of weeks, as many as 10. But taking the low end, that is a minimum of 435 jobs I've applied for since I lost my job in 2008. I made sure I wasn't pricing myself out of a job; I made a point to ask for less than I'd been earning with my previous employer...25% less at first, then 30%, 33%, 40%, 45%, ending up with me asking for anything that pays at least $10 per hour...a reduction in pay of just less than 47%. Time and time again, I heard (when I did hear from companies to which I applied) various platitudes that all came down to the same thing: "Mr. Rice, we feel you are 'overqualified' for this position." My favorite, which is also the one I heard the most, was, "Mr. Rice, thank you for coming in, but we feel that you just wouldn't be happy in this position." What? Not happy being able to pay my bills and provide for my family?!?

I was even willing to perform manual labor. I applied to four construction companies and two landscaping/lawn mowing companies. Even though I was willing to take entry-level jobs for $2 per hour less than they were offering, I was told in all 6 instances that I was not qualified to either swing a hammer or dig a hole in the United States of America because I was not fluent in the Mexican dialect of Spanish and would not be able to communicate with the rest of the crew.

When I finally got a job offer in September 2010 as a contractor assigned to a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock, performing the job I had last held with them, but making $24 per hour, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the California-based company who wanted to hire me filed for Bankruptcy and closed their doors before I could start.

Five months (and about 70 applications) later, I received another job offer as a temporary employee making $12 per hour for a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock. I was relieved. Then that company started playing their 800-pound Gorilla games again, leaving all the new-hires hanging by pushing back the start date not once, not twice, but 6 different times. (Even now they are only saying the jobs will start "sometime in June".)

Fortunately, I had started looking again after the first delay, so that I was able to find another job by the middle of April. The only downside of this job is that it is Commission Only and...while my mentors and managers keep telling me I am doing a great job, that I'm doing everything right...I seem to keep finding all the tree weasels who just want to play "let's jerk the sales rep around." I actually had two commitments to purchase from me...one decided to back out and not return any of my calls, while the other actually signed the contracts, then 3 days later started claiming that I somehow 'tricked' him into signing and that I lied to him about everything. Fortunately, my District Manager was there with me to make certain I did everything correctly.

Finances: What can I say other than, "the economy sucks." A simplistic yet accurate summary of the times in which we live. Our issues, however, pre-date the current 'economic down-turn.'

In late 1999, my wife and I determined that our lives were finally stable enough to purchase our first home. We researched, weighed the pros and cons between buying an existing home and having one built, and decided to build. We researched, consulted financial advisors who advised us that we could afford a $225,000 home, then decided to have one built that was worth $125,000. We did the same thing when we decided it was time to purchase a new vehicle instead of an older used vehicle. Basically, we approached every financial decision we made cautiously after consulting the alleged 'experts' and chose to 'buy low' so that we would not over-extend ourselves.

In July 2002, a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock...more specifically, an insecure, weaselly sales manager with a Napoleon Complex (his previous team called him "Lord Farquaad" behind his back!) at a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock...decided to terminate me for being "unable to work within the dynamics of the team" I created. I did not make that up. What is in quotation marks is the actual reason for termination on my separation papers. The truth of the matter is that his job had been offered to...and turned down by...me three times before they put him in charge of our group. (I basically told the Powers-That-Be that I was infinitely more principled that the corporation, that one day my principles and the company's would come into conflict, that I would always choose to be honorable and true to my principles, and that my honor would not allow me to accept a position unless they understood and agreed that I could manage the group under my principles and not the company's. They declined. Three times.) Lord Farquaad never got over the fact that he was technically the fourth choice for the position (me being the other three!), that Directors and VP's would actually bypass him and come directly to me with their questions and requests because I was the principle Subject Matter Expert in that field within the corporation (he actually scolded a Director for doing that once, only to have the Director take him into a private conference room for a conversation. I don't know what the Director said to him, but when they came out, Lord Farquaad looked blushingly chastised and suddenly took an early lunch), and that I was so thorough in documenting everything that he made himself look foolish once when he tried to 'trip me up' by claiming I had dropped the ball on a project, only to discover that I could produce archived e-mails showing that not only had I kept him apprised along the way, but that he actually gave me his blessings on what I had been doing.

The reason this is in the Finance section is that this termination came on my second day back from vacation. It was the first time in my adult life that I'd taken the family on a 'traditional' two-week vacation. My Mother's side of the family had a large family reunion out in California in June 2002...the first big, comprehensive one since 1976...so my wife and I piled everyone into the mini-van, picked up my Mother in Oklahoma, and drove out there. I'd planned it out so that we could see some of the sights along Old Route 66 on the way out, visit with my brother, his fiancée, and his son in Las Vegas, and even stop at my Father's birthplace in Western Oklahoma and try to find the family cemetery. It was a wonderful but tiring trip. Before we decided to take this trip, my wife and I had sat down and gone over our finances with a fine-toothed comb to make certain once again we weren't over-extending ourselves.

Basically, we had both made economic mistakes in our youth and had worked diligently between 1995 and 2000 to overcome and correct those mistakes. We were determined to not repeat those mistakes. Ever. Plus, I grew up in a family where my Father was able to hold onto money the way a nail holds Jello to a wall. We determined that we had everything sufficiently under control so that we could afford to almost max out our credit cards on this trip, then be able to have them completely paid off within 8 months. So, off we went.

Obviously, being terminated my second day back threw a wrench into this plan. While I was looking for a new job, we eked by through cutting back on daily expenses and paying only the minimum due on the credit cards. The latter, of course, is a sure-fire path to economic oblivion.

Being as disgusted as I was by large corporate sales and sales support, my wife encouraged me to return to one of my original passions: the restaurant industry. I've always wanted to (and still do!) own my very own casual restaurant and inn...something along the lines of a modern student hostel meets the Prancing Pony Inn from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'd managed a couple of pizza places in my youth (late Teens/early 20's) but felt I needed more experience with every facet of a restaurant. So, with my wife's encouragement and blessings, I got a job as a waiter at Cheddar's.

Once again, we are still in Finance because this decision had a major impact on our household income...and our ability to repay all the debt we'd incurred on the family reunion trip. When we both worked for a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock, our adjusted annual household income was right at $77K. Once I got back to work (I was hired in December 2002, but the restaurant didn't open until late January 2003), our household income hovered right around $41K...only 53% of what it had been.

When I interviewed for the wait staff position, I was up front about my desire to work my way up to management, and eventually own a place of my own. The management at Cheddars not only supported and encouraged this, but what they saw in me during my shifts led to me being promoted to Server Shift Lead and Server Trainer in less than three months. It was hard work, but I was really enjoying myself. The Executive Chef had even, as we say here in Texas, "taken a shine" to me and was teaching me some of the kitchen tricks. Things were tight but good.

Then, I re-injured my left knee. I wrapped it, tried working with a heavy-duty ribbed brace on, but I just couldn't perform the job any longer. I had to resign and find something else. This was October 2003. Needless to say, Christmas that year was a bit thin.

By March 2004, I had swallowed some of my angst regarding corporations and begin applying for customer service positions. I applied to Kelly Services for one of those jobs. They informed me that, while the job for which I'd applied had been filled, there was another one they thought I might be good for and asked if they could submit my name for that one. The next day, I received a call that Dun & Bradstreet wanted to interview me.

I started as a Kelly Temp at D&B April 2004. This took our annual household income back up to almost $52K...about 67.5% of what I'd been making in the Spring of 2002. D&B quickly recognized my capabilities and began giving me more and more responsibilities. They liked my work so much, that they actually flew me to the main facility in Bethlehem, PA to be part of a project team that was revising customer service policies and procedures to make it more streamlined for customers. By March 2006, they had hired me as a regular D&B employee, made me a group leader and department head of the Winning Culture initiative, had me training the new hires, and gave me a raise so that our annual household income was now just under $59K...about 77% of our Spring 2002 level. Then the Universe decided it hadn't dumped on me for awhile.

As part of my training on how to create DUNS Numbers and business files, I had created (at the instruction of the person training me) a dummy file for practice. Unfortunately, I'd used real information about my wife's home cosmetics/skin care business when creating this dummy file. D&B did...and still does...have an almost obsessive approach to data accuracy and integrity. I have no problem with this. It ensures that the data they supply to their customers is the most accurate and trustworthy possible. Part of this includes regular security reviews of the data to weed out bogus information and to make certain no D&B employee is colluding with a business owner to skew the report on that business. I unknowingly ran afoul of that obsession with data security.

To make it easier to manipulate my dummy file, I had placed myself in it as the President of the company. During one of the security reviews in late May 2008, a red flag went up when it was discovered that one of their customer service group leaders was listed as an executive in a business file he'd created and had been updating. When I explained this to my immediate manager and our Senior Manager, they were relieved that I was still as honorable as they thought I was, but sad that company policy required that they terminate me since part of D&B's obsession with data accuracy and integrity includes a Zero Tolerance Policy when it comes to even the appearance of impropriety. Fortunately, the Senior Manager had some leeway in the company's policies as to how I was to be terminated, so he put down that my official reason for termination was "Laid Off."

This brings us back to the present: almost 155 weeks since I was "Laid Off" from D&B. Between 2005 and Spring 2008, things were still tight but we'd made some headway with repairing our financial situation...even though we got zapped by several medical issues during that time. In 2008 alone, our out-of-pocket medical expenses exceeded $12K.

Part of the problem was that, when I lost my job at D&B, we were in the middle of a medical issue with my wife. She had been diagnosed with her issue and surgery was scheduled while I was still employed. Even after I lost my job, I'd managed to confirm that my medical insurance was paid up and good through the end of the month. At the last minute, the hospital rescheduled my wife's procedure due to a scheduling conflict with one of the surgery team members. Since everything had been diagnosed and approved while my insurance was still in force, it didn't dawn on me that I needed to re-confirm with the insurance company. In August, about 6 weeks after the procedure, we were informed that, because the procedure was performed the week after my insurance expired, it was not covered and we would have to pay for the entire thing out of pocket.

This led to another blow in our financial situation. After conferring with a financial advisor to whom we'd been referred by our credit union, we completed and filed forms that were supposed to allow us to take a medically-based emergency early disbursement from my wife's 401K with no tax liability or penalties. In March 2010, we discovered this was not true. Apparently, we had received some very bad advice from this so-called 'financial advisor.' The IRS decided we owed them approximately $4200 in past-due taxes, interest, and penalties for this early disbursement. We tried to find the person who had advised us about this, but he seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth. Neither the credit union nor a professional organization for financial advisors have been able to determine this person's whereabouts. In the meantime, the IRS began to garnish my wife's wages, convinced that we could live on only $769 per month...in spite of the fact that we showed them documentation that our bare minimum monthly expenditure on our mortgage and utilities was $2200. Oh, and by the way, for every quarter we did not pay this tax debt in full, the IRS added additional fines and interest that amounted to about 22% of the outstanding balance. By October 2010, this tax liability was still over $4000, even though the IRS had been taking about 58% of our monthly income and applying it to the debt.

They weren't finished with us, though. They decided that we hadn't filed our tax returns for tax years 2002 through 2006 and decided to file them for us for those five years...at the highest tax rate available. By the time they were finished with us, the IRS had decided we owe over $90K in back taxes, interest, and penalties.

Regrettably, I am not an accountant, nor am I naturally organized. My filing system is rather simple: I keep things in boxes with other things from around the same time period. When this time period is 3 years old, I move the box or boxes out into the garage where I forget about them. This is why I haven't been able to find all 5 returns for the years in question. Additionally, I had thrown out some boxes that had been ruined by cats two or three years ago, and I am afraid that the 2005 and 2006 records were included in one or more of those boxes. Because of this, I am now having to manually recreate my returns for those two years.

In the meantime, everything caught up to us early this year. Wells Fargo decided to file for foreclosure of our home loan, so, on February 28th of this year (2011), we were forced to retain an attorney and file for Bankruptcy Chapter 13. We've managed to work out a budget and repayment schedule with the Bankruptcy court, but it was contingent upon me starting that $12 per hour job with a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock by the end of March 2011, so we are back to struggling on ridiculously small amounts of money again.

Oh, I forgot to mention that, when October 2010 started, we had 3 vehicles in the family...nothing fancy, all 3 had over 100K miles on them, and one had an overheating issue, but we at least had basic transportation that got between 24 & 30 miles per gallon. In the middle of October, the one with over-heating issues finally gave up the ghost. I got $200 for it from a scrap yard. In February, my daughter's car was impounded when she was arrested for a traffic violation. For numerous reasons, she just let them have it and never tried to get it back.

So, we were down to a single vehicle. By this time, we were putting about 2400 miles on it per month. It had just started to make a knocking sound and I had stopped in at a repair shop to see if they could diagnose the problem. They couldn't get to me until 2 that afternoon, so I said I just need to run one errand, then I will have the van back to the shop. It never made it. The engine froze up on the way to the errand. I actually got $500 from the scrap yard for this one.

This left us vehicle-less. We managed to scrape together $500 dollars, and I began talking to the used car lots, looking for basic transportation and someone who would work with us. The only lot who would was Drive Time, and the only vehicle they had that we could get for a $500 total drive-off was a 2008 mini-van that gets only 19 miles per gallon. Now that we have a single vehicle doing what 3 used to do, and now that I have a job that has me visiting customer sites all over Travis and southern Williamson Counties, we are putting almost 4000 miles on the van per month...that's $700 - $800 per month in gas! (Right now, it is sitting on an eighth of a tank, our checking account is almost $500 over drawn, and between us we have all of 37 cents.)

And, on top of everything else, we've spent over $3000 bailing our daughter out of jail several times since 2009.

No...there's no financial stress in our family. 8^P

Family: This brings me to the third category of the stress in my life...my family. As I mentioned in the Finance section, nearly all of us have been dealing with medical issues of one sort or another.

My wife's issue that led to surgery in the Summer of 2008 is much, much better since that surgery. Other than that, she is mostly dealing with the seasonal allergies that have plagued her most of her life and a hereditary problem with high blood pressure.

My youngest daughter continues to suffer from undiagnosable chest pains. These pains began about 7 1/2 years ago...early in 4th grade. It started as a minor but sharp pain, accompanied by a shortness of breath. It quickly grew until it was mimicking the symptoms of a heart attack. Over the last 7 1/2 years, we have taken her to a Pediatrician, two Pediatric Cardiologists, one General Cardiologist, a Thoracic Surgeon, a Psychologist, a Psychiatrist (these two in case it was psychosomatic), and an Osteopath. Not a single one of them has been able to identify what is causing these pains...in spite of the fact that she was hooked up to portable EKG machines for 30 days at a time on two separate occasions. So far, while they have been unable to say what it is, they have conclusively determined that it is not her heart, the musculature wall around her rib cage, or in her mind. The Osteopath is currently treating it as a possible lung/respiratory issue. In the meantime, my baby is subjected several times a week to crushing pains in her chest that are often bad enough to drive her to her knees. Her only option is to basically "just let it pass." We have standing instructions that, if she experiences a pain that is worse or different than usual, we are to immediately take her to the ER so they can at least make certain she is not having a heart attack. We have been in ER's a total of 3 times in 2011 alone (so far).

to be continued

Until then, best regards...



© James P. Rice 2011, 2014

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