connecting*the*dots

(originally uploaded by baratunde)

Come next week — knock on wood — I’ll have a relatively inexpensive health insurance plan. Not a big deal, you say? Okay, here’s a little back story:

• I’ve had a documented, red flag raising, pre-existing condition for a while now — nothing life-threatening, but a red flagger nonetheless
• For the last 18-months, I was paying $465 per month for Cobra coverage, which terminated on 11/1
• I applied for Blue Cross/Blue Shied coverage three weeks ago as a sole proprietor and the best rate I could get was $1,050 per month

With only a 63 day window to land a policy and avoid losing credible coverage, I gotta admit, I was beginning to sweat. Visions of having to find a corporate gig — strictly for a benefit package — began dancing through my head.

And then I was introduced to Dan Bulluck.

The Man With The Plan

Angela purchased a health insurance plan at Chakras through Dan’s group (Barnett-Smith), so she took the opportunity to speak with him last Friday about my situation.

Fast-forward to Monday evening.

Dan and I discussed my situation on the phone for a while and eventually settled on pursuing a short-term policy — a bridge to ensure credible coverage — until we could find a long-term plan at a better rate, which seemed like the impossible dream.

We were about to hang up when I mentioned that I heard about a law in North Carolina that gave sole proprietor S-Corp owners access to affordable group rates; I wondered out loud if that would be the case for an LLC owner (like me) as well?

Dan’s answer? Yep. And the kicker?

As the owner of a LLC, my pre-existing condition, by law, can’t adversely affect my premium by more than a 32% hike — as opposed to the 700% increase I would’ve paid through any carrier as a red-flagged sole proprietor.

With a good plan starting around $150, I’m now looking at no more than $220 per month — a savings of $830 per month!

(originally uploaded by ∙ELi∙)

Yeah, that made me happy. Talk about earning a commission!

Yesterday, Dan and I sat down to fill out paperwork and ended up having a great conversation about the ins and outs of the health insurance industry — so much so that I felt compelled to share a couple of pointers he gave me:

1. Be sure to develop a strong relationship with your primary doctor. Health insurance providers only tap into your primary physician’s records when checking the status of your health history. They don’t cull through specialist’s records, which means that your primary physician holds the keys to your premium. So when you go in for a check-up or an emergency appointment, be sure that you understand what your doctor is recording in your file and if necessary, ask him to be “off the record” if you need to talk about potential health issues that might send out a red flag.
2. Get your medical records direct from the source. Health insurance companies rely on the Medical Insurance Bureau (MIB) to do the work of gathering your health records from your primary doctor. Apparently, for $7 free, you can have a copy of your record sent to you for review, just like your credit report. Why would you want it? Well, similar to how your credit report is invaluable for understanding your standing in our credit-based society, it’s also a tool to find inconsistencies that need correction. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s much better to deal with these institutions than try to wish them away, so I’m getting my MIB report next week.

Health insurance is a friggin’ mess in this country.

The idea that a sole proprietor, a minimum wage employee or even an unemployed person can’t find affordable health insurance is a crime that needs to be addressed, either through legislation or competition that is willing to drastically undercut the current system.

Up until Monday, I thought my own situation was hopeless… and then I met a guy who wasn’t strictly into his job for a commission and explored every option with me until we found a solution. I don’t know how rare that is, but I do know that Dan Bulluck took on this second career to help people, first and foremost. So if you live in North Carolina and are having health insurance issues, give him a ring at 336-686-2220. For those of you in Greensboro, you can simply drop on by his office at 218 Greene Street.

It may sound hyperbolic, but the guy saved my life.

(originally uploaded by Gymkata)

Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King

For the back story, hit up Tuttle SVC.

UPDATE: It seems as though Google has closed the GoogleBomb loophole in their algorithm. What now?

Johnny Marr & David Cross covering Ethan Chandler’s Bank of America “One” cover.

In more corporate stupidity news, Universal Music Publishing Group has issued a cease and desist letter to a blog showing the original BofA “One” video.

Be sure to download your copy of the video before YouTube kills caves to another lawyer.

(self-portrait by dsearls)

Sorry, Doc — I couldn’t quote your Jupiter Research post without a Rageboy-like visual.

Turning funnels into megaphones
Doc Searls

[…]

Think for a minute about how much more useful (or obsolete) marketing would be if customers had actual relationships, or the means to initiate relationships — on the customers’ terms — when and where they wanted to initiate them?

Wouldn’t it be handy if customers could, at their discretion, by themselves or in whatever groups they feel like assembling (in the wild open and free marketplace, rather than in any vendor’s or intermediary’s silo), tell vendors what they are looking for, and under what conditions? Including what they are willing to pay?

We’re talking about a real marketplace here. Not eBay or any other walled garden.

We’re talking about relieving vendors of the need to do complex guesswork about what customers want.

We’re talking about efficient and easy ways to satisfy money-in-hand demand, rather than more ways of ‘creating’ or manipulating demand.

We’re talking about obsoleting advertising as we know it. Marketing too.

We’re talking about re-framing markets as real places where transactions, conversations and relationships happen between independent participants on terms and conditions that are work well for everybody.

We’re talking about creating the means for leveraging customer independence, choice and rights to obtain respect and authority independent of any private online marketplace, or any search engine.

We’re talking about VRM, for Vendor Relationship Management. Some have suggested RM for just Relationship Management. Others have suggested XRM, for managing relationships with anybody, including one’s own social networks — ranging from memberships in organizations to email white and black lists. Whatever we call it, the subject will be front & center at the Internet Identity Workshop coming up in December.

We’re talking about individuals managing the means by which their every gesture is recorded (or not) and put to use (or not).

We’re talking about giving research organizations and their clients reasons to stop looking at each of us as “consumers”, “audiences”, or cattle that can be “driven” to do anything.

We’re talking about flattening the power relationships between vendors and customers, for the good of both.

I could go on, but it’s Sunday morning, and I’m off to make breakfast, have some fun with the family, and buy stuff from vendors who don’t treat people like plankton.

As much as some people might like to believe, we don’t define ourselves as a nation of market silos, with various connecting retail channels and media mechanisms enabled to advertise new and retreaded products for mass consumption — either in the brick n’ mortar space or the new wild west of the internet.

We define at ourselves as people, first and foremost. And, God forbid, we like to be treated as such.

The problem that Doc has framed in the past, and is dealing with in this post, is that the majority of players who guard and influence the American system of capitalism can’t seem to roll with the idea of influence neutral and people-centric business practices.

Why you ask? (come on, ask)

Because systematically backing individualism comes at too high of a cost.

Consider the fact that:

• mass manufacturing and targeted advertising in the industrial age set the standard approach to maximizing short-term and long-term profitability; customization and new media conversations throws a huge monkey wrench into that methodology of perpetual product pimping and production.
• the more catering the individual receives — regardless of the depth of their pockets — the more that the levers of the traditional supply and demand model must change; this affects not only the politics of the market, but the politics of the nation, as citizen participation and influence flattens and widens the playing field.

To me, it sounds like Doc wants to live in a world where we have enough breathing room to get a handle on our own needs and wants — as opposed to our current state of constantly being poked, prodded and influenced into needing what marketers and advertisers want us to buy.

Don’t we all want to live in such a world?

By enabling smart social mechanisms that allow us to — for a lack of a better term — ping the ether when we desire, alerting other human beings to hit us back who own aligning attributes of proximity, supply, price, quality, etc., we can move towards a way of life that is free of the walled constructs that serve the bricklayers more than the bartering parties themselves.

We don’t quite have such a commons in place yet, and our new economy mechanisms are still somewhat crude, but we’re heading in the right direction.

In order to ensure our new world dreams don’t get trounced by the same people who clipped the wings of ham radio operators and the promise of public access television, we need to be vigilant in monitoring the old guard who won’t evolve — for as innovation creates opportunities for the masses, it also marginalizes old technology and the people who hold on for dear life.

These people will not go quietly into the night.

(originally uploaded by ucumari)

(originally uploaded by Nomine UK)

Man, so much for the old campus cop cliché: “Stop! Or I’ll say stop again!”

I agree with Navaho — these students are a bunch of bitches. I don’t know how anyone could just stand around and let campus cops do this to another student.

UPDATE: Apparently, UCLA Chancellor Norman Abrams backs the action of his rent-a-thugs.

UPDATE II: It turns out that the abused 23 year-old student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, is Iranian-American. His lawyer is saying that his American born client was targeted because of his appearance (in the video you can hear Mostafa screaming about the Patriot Act). Meanwhile, UCLA students protested outside the UCLAPD office, demanding accountability for the police abuse.