Bad Air in Albany?

The report of bad air in Albany hardly surprises me. I live in an industrial district. The air sometimes stinks. But what stinks worse is the constant smoke from a neighbors wood burning. When he burns it, the smoke gets inside this house and sometimes the smell is so strong, I wake up thinking the house is on fire. My eyes burn. My throat burns and yuk! It's miserable. Click post title to see TRI report on Linn County emissions.

The two worst polluting offenders in Linn County, as far as the TRI, appear to be Wah Chang, on Salem Road, and the Pope and Talbot, Inc. Halsey pulp mill. The report makes for interesting, albeit scarey, reading.

But if you compare the number of reporting industries in Linn and Benton, Linn has far more who report. There are only some chemicals released that must be reported, apparently. The smell of manure near the OSU livestock barns would certainly top the charts if reporting was required. I lived near those barns, so I'm an expert on the volume of those odiferous (stinky) emissions. It was like living beside a cow outhouse, sometimes, that the porta potty people never emptied or cleaned. You know what I"m talking about.

I would think the air would be worse in Albany, if it is, because of the massive car problem here. There is an overpopulation of cars in Albany, big trucks, and an addiction to roaring one's vehicle engine, producing clouds of exhaust. I would think that would be a major contribution.

But, I knew someone who, when they moved to the mid valley, bought a house in Lebanon, rather than live in Albany, because, they said, Albany stinks. They have sinced moved to WA. Yes, sometimes it does.

Moral of the story, maybe it's good I don't exercise anymore, living here, due to lack of parks and anywhere to exercise. Breathing hard in bad air when exercising means inhaling more toxins into your body.

I saw a report on CNN about health insurance and people who don't have it. But not only that, if a family pays out of pocket for health insurance, buying their own policy, it can cost for a family of four, over $12,000 per year, merely for premiums, not counting copays. I don't know people who make that kind of money.

A senator is introducing a bill that would disconnect health insurance from employers, instead, encouraging employers to raise wages so people can buy their own. Like that would happen! He believes with people shopping around for their own insurance, prices would be driven down. Companies shop around now, and negotiate lower prices by volume of people they enroll from their company. Individual buyers would have no such volume leverage.

Anyhow, such a bill would only create more uninsured people, as the report pointed out, because people with pre-existing conditions then could not get insured when formerly they could do so through an employer. Allegedly, states have high risk pools to help such people get insurance, but the report stated that states help only a tiny fraction of the people who cannot get insurance due to pre-existing conditions.

The report stated the US got into the mess, with employers paying insurance, during WWII, when wages were frozen to combat inflation and tax breaks were given to industries to attract and keep workers that were to be passed on to workers in the form of things like health insurance.

They equated it with buying car insurance. You can choose not to have a car, however, if poor, and then not have to pay insurance. Most poor people I know drive uninsured. Why? Because even liability insurance for a good driver, without accidents or tickets, runs close to $500 a year. That's damn expensive. Go ahead and claim it isn't. It is, to people who live on very little.

I pay $45 a month, an amount that includes the monthly $5 billing fee, which is a crock. Would my insurance company be there for me, should a false claim come in? Of course not. Of course not. Hahahaha. That's so funny to even think about. Of course they wouldn't be behind me.

This is $500 down the drain for me. Down the drain. Paying that much money, nearly an entire month of my money, won't help me replace my shattered windsheild, shattered when struck by rocks flying off an incredibly filthy gravel truck pulling a backho on a flatbed. The flatbed had not been cleaned off either. Rocks were flying through the air behind that rig that day on I5.

The cheapest quote so far for fixing that windshield---almost $400. Where is that money supposed to come from? Thin air? I could use that vapor money, the money thrown down the insurance money pit, to do something tangible, like to fix that windshield, broken because of another negligant driver.

Along these lines I got a questionnaire from Samaritan Advantage, the medicare HMO I have to accept here in the mid valley, in order to get any medical coverage. The HMO is owned and operated by Good Samaritan hospital. The questionnaire claims Medicare has to know how many of Samaritan Advantage recipients have secondary insurance or a job. I am not so sure, and when they ask point blank, "do you have a job" I am afraid to answer that to Samaritan Advantage. I guess I don't trust that they are not creating a list of poor people, to further discriminate in care against us.

I don't know why I think that, maybe partly because of the problem getting a new doctor, when mine quit. Nobody wanted to take my medicare insurance. I finally found a doctor taking new patients but I was then severely scolded by the receptionist at the Samaritan operated office, because, I was told, that doctor's openings were not for "people like you" but for "real people in the general public".

This kind of thing messes with a person's self-worth and also creates suspicion.

For all the technilogical advances and all the crap on the news every day about what tests you should have and all that, that doesn't fly as normal for most Americans. I don't think the morning news shows that give all that even seem to know that most Americans don't know if their blood pressure is normal or not. I don't. I haven't had a PAP smear in 10 or more years either. I don't know if my cholestrol is normal or not. I had it tested just once, that i know of, years and years ago. I think that's the way it is for most people.