Commonwealth bureaucracy and no skills
Mar. 7th, 2008 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pseydtonneIt's my weekend, so I did what many third-shift folks do on their respective weekends: went to bed around midnight and slept during the night. Oh man, sleep uninterrupted by the light of day is magnificent. Joe Bob says check it out.
I woke up to the lilting sounds of workmen replacing some part of the roof. Then I whipped out my taxes and started the intense fun of finding out how much I would owe since I didn't withhold while I was collecting unemployment last summer. So far the news is good: My employers withheld so much that I'm getting a Federal refund of a pleasant but not egregious amount. Massachusetts, in contrast, has a special new three-page schedule for their mandatory health care scheme and I'll fume about that
If you don't live in Massachusetts, then you're missing all the great new paperwork. The front cover of the 2007 Mass Resident Income tax Form 1 features a screaming alert: "This year Massachusetts requires that you file the new health care schedule. Schedule HC". Okay, you've got me all moist and juicy with a wind-up like that, DOR.
Open the booklet and you're greeted with the three-page Schedule HC. Yes, three pages -- in case you're missing the point that you're a criminal for not having health care, you'll now understand that you're a miscreant and possibly a sinner.
Here's where it affects me. I had health coverage from January First of 2007 until the summer. The coverage was supposed to continue until three months after I was laid off on June 30th. For some reason it ended about a month later, two month early. Then I was stuck without a job until the week of Hallowe'en. Since I had earned more than what would likely qualify me for discounted health insurance, I didn't apply for Comm Health. I knew that one month of coverage would probably cost as much as the proposed fine for not having coverage: loss of one's personal deduction from Mass taxes. I didn't realize it would mean filling out three pages of "why are you a sinner, sinner?"
The law about mandatory health care took affect the day I got laid off. My new health coverage at my present job only kicked in "sixty days after the contact began", which would in theory be Christmas week but really seems to have been the first week of 2008. Thus it doesn't matter that I had coverage in the first half of 2007 nor does it matter that I now have coverage: I have no form from IBM providing time of coverage so I have no proof of health insurance during any of the second half of 2007. Thus not only do I pay, I gotta get a three-page lecture from the Department of Revenue (or "dee-oh-ahh", as they call it here).
I just wanted to file, write a check and be done with it. Instead I need to feel guilty about this? Screw it. At least I'm covered for 2008, when the penalties are supposed to be much worse.
By the way, this is a warning to all of you living outside Mass: any candidate proposing a national health care model that follows what the Bay State has, you'll go through the same crap. It won't be worth it. You don't get actual health care just because it's mandatory -- instead you get yelled at.
Up came a local ad, ruining my enjoyment of a fine national ad for Victoria's Secret. The local ad was pimping a local attorney, whom I shan't name for fear of litigious behaviors. The lawyer is depicted in windows across the screen doing various boring things lawyers do.
If my family ever needed to make an attorney's ad for my dad, a criminal lawyer, I fear we'd wind up showing him in various suits and then cut to him jogging. Why jogging? Because if you've just been caught with a few crack rocks on your person and you need a lawyer, you'll see this guy jogging down your lousy street and think "Dude! It's the crack and whores lawyer from TV! I'll grab a Powerade and try to catch up with him. I hear he's terrible about collecting what his clients owe him."
Okay, enough about why I paid for college myself and back to the commercial I just saw.
There's this lawyer lookin' all lawyery or legalistic or douchey. There is one window at the top right of the screen where he is holding his cell phone and having some kind of verbal attack. He's holding the phone daintily, almost as if it were covered with slime. Then I realize he's got the damn thing upside-down.
If your lawyer can't tell that the glowing part with the Hannah Montana picture goes against his ear and the number pad goes closer to his mouth, you may have a problem when your verdict arrives.
You could argue in his defense, "maybe he's old-school! Like, he isn't used to these new-fangled devices and all that." I'd agree, as my dad is a bit clumsy with his phone. In fact my folks still have not configured voice mail to work on either of their phones after several years. Thus I cannot leave them messages on their cells.
However, this is a commercial. There is at least one person behind that camera and that person has a cell phone. Tell the douche to flip the frickin' phone around and hold it like a man. If that guy didn't have the balls or heart to explain this to the way-future congressman for the Douceth District (the Fightin' Dulcets), then he'd better reconsider his career in directing anything.
I woke up to the lilting sounds of workmen replacing some part of the roof. Then I whipped out my taxes and started the intense fun of finding out how much I would owe since I didn't withhold while I was collecting unemployment last summer. So far the news is good: My employers withheld so much that I'm getting a Federal refund of a pleasant but not egregious amount. Massachusetts, in contrast, has a special new three-page schedule for their mandatory health care scheme and I'll fume about that
If you don't live in Massachusetts, then you're missing all the great new paperwork. The front cover of the 2007 Mass Resident Income tax Form 1 features a screaming alert: "This year Massachusetts requires that you file the new health care schedule. Schedule HC". Okay, you've got me all moist and juicy with a wind-up like that, DOR.
Open the booklet and you're greeted with the three-page Schedule HC. Yes, three pages -- in case you're missing the point that you're a criminal for not having health care, you'll now understand that you're a miscreant and possibly a sinner.
Here's where it affects me. I had health coverage from January First of 2007 until the summer. The coverage was supposed to continue until three months after I was laid off on June 30th. For some reason it ended about a month later, two month early. Then I was stuck without a job until the week of Hallowe'en. Since I had earned more than what would likely qualify me for discounted health insurance, I didn't apply for Comm Health. I knew that one month of coverage would probably cost as much as the proposed fine for not having coverage: loss of one's personal deduction from Mass taxes. I didn't realize it would mean filling out three pages of "why are you a sinner, sinner?"
The law about mandatory health care took affect the day I got laid off. My new health coverage at my present job only kicked in "sixty days after the contact began", which would in theory be Christmas week but really seems to have been the first week of 2008. Thus it doesn't matter that I had coverage in the first half of 2007 nor does it matter that I now have coverage: I have no form from IBM providing time of coverage so I have no proof of health insurance during any of the second half of 2007. Thus not only do I pay, I gotta get a three-page lecture from the Department of Revenue (or "dee-oh-ahh", as they call it here).
I just wanted to file, write a check and be done with it. Instead I need to feel guilty about this? Screw it. At least I'm covered for 2008, when the penalties are supposed to be much worse.
By the way, this is a warning to all of you living outside Mass: any candidate proposing a national health care model that follows what the Bay State has, you'll go through the same crap. It won't be worth it. You don't get actual health care just because it's mandatory -- instead you get yelled at.
Up came a local ad, ruining my enjoyment of a fine national ad for Victoria's Secret. The local ad was pimping a local attorney, whom I shan't name for fear of litigious behaviors. The lawyer is depicted in windows across the screen doing various boring things lawyers do.
If my family ever needed to make an attorney's ad for my dad, a criminal lawyer, I fear we'd wind up showing him in various suits and then cut to him jogging. Why jogging? Because if you've just been caught with a few crack rocks on your person and you need a lawyer, you'll see this guy jogging down your lousy street and think "Dude! It's the crack and whores lawyer from TV! I'll grab a Powerade and try to catch up with him. I hear he's terrible about collecting what his clients owe him."
Okay, enough about why I paid for college myself and back to the commercial I just saw.
There's this lawyer lookin' all lawyery or legalistic or douchey. There is one window at the top right of the screen where he is holding his cell phone and having some kind of verbal attack. He's holding the phone daintily, almost as if it were covered with slime. Then I realize he's got the damn thing upside-down.
If your lawyer can't tell that the glowing part with the Hannah Montana picture goes against his ear and the number pad goes closer to his mouth, you may have a problem when your verdict arrives.
You could argue in his defense, "maybe he's old-school! Like, he isn't used to these new-fangled devices and all that." I'd agree, as my dad is a bit clumsy with his phone. In fact my folks still have not configured voice mail to work on either of their phones after several years. Thus I cannot leave them messages on their cells.
However, this is a commercial. There is at least one person behind that camera and that person has a cell phone. Tell the douche to flip the frickin' phone around and hold it like a man. If that guy didn't have the balls or heart to explain this to the way-future congressman for the Douceth District (the Fightin' Dulcets), then he'd better reconsider his career in directing anything.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-08 01:40 am (UTC)I'm worried about what's going to happen to me for 2008:
I quit my job on 1/18/08. I became a Virginia resident on 2/7/08. I just got a letter saying my health care coverage from my old job ended 1/31/08.
I started my new job on 2/11/08. My health care coverage (in Virginia) did not take effect until 3/1/08, and I'm not sure why.
So, for the entire month of February, I had no health insurance. Thankfully I did not get sick.
I'm wondering if I'll be penalized for the ONE WEEK during which I was a Massachusetts resident with no health insurance.