"I'll be Your Mirror" - Mike and Ruthy
Gorgeous cover of one of those shockingly lovely Lou Reed tunes. (Still searching on youtube for a version of "Pale Blue Eyes" that does it justice.)
Sorry for the disappearance, but the schedule has been crazy -- driving and meeting, meeting and driving. Work and meetings and 220 miles on the road on Wednesday, ten hours of meetings yesterday in Virginia Beach, 280 miles of driving today, to head to yet another meeting. Finally got home to hang with Stanley.
I spent about three hours of yesterday discussing health care reform with the trustees of a union medical fund and must say the law got less than a rapturous reception from both labor and management. The big fear is that changes dictated by the law -- the additional coverage of children up to age 26, the elimination of annual and lifetime caps, and other benefit improvements mandated by law are going to increase the costs of providing coverage, while at the same time nothing is being done to penalize in any meaningful way the non-union employers who don't provide a dime of benefits. In an industry where benefits have been kept on the more modest side in order to retain some semblance of competitiveness, this seems a cruel blow to decent employers.
I find myself in the strange position of both fully supporting the changes the law dictates while also sharing my clients' unhappiness. This, by the way, is one instance where the harder left critique of the law really missed the boat. The bitch from many was that the law was mandating people buy shitty insurance -- in fact, the coverage mandated by PPACA is quite good. What is missing is an effective employer mandate and the perverse consequence is going to be that many decent employers may look to walk away from providing health insurance.
I'll try to revisit this issue as it plays out a bit more.
In the meantime, I missed hanging out here. Hope you are all well and going to have a lovely weekend. Me, I want to sleep and not drive.
