Matt Of All Trades

A scheme by health insurers to deny coverage and medication to patients via bureaucracy has hit Vermont with a vengeance. My health insurer just caught me up in a type of trap I never knew existed until now.  It's called prior authorization, and it is a Byzantine, maddening  way for health insurers to deny coverage of important, sometimes life-saving  medical procedures and prescriptions.   Prior authorization is evil. It's dangerous. It is being done more and more by "health" insurers nationwide. And ot's hit Vermont with a vengeance this month. Essentially, it's the insurance industry trying to make medical decision for  patients they've never met. That is, instead of letting physicians who have actually physically examined and worked with these patients do that crucial work.    This rising tide of  prior authorization denials of medical services has been known to cause poorer outcomes, permanent injury to patients, even extra deaths. ...

Alpacas are cute, and the Vermont farms they live on are lovely, except in instances where the farms are acquired through pandemic loan fraud, as prosecutors allege in  one Vermont case. The Federal Paycheck Protection Program was meant to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic as a way to preserve employment through the crisis.   It program was a big help, and it saved a lot of butts. However, as with everything else, there are a few cheaters involved, and now prosecutors are starting to poke around nabbing people who benefitted illegally. Among the people caught in this net is somebody who allegedly cheated to get this money in what I consider an only-in-Vermont way. He used the money to buy alpacas. Anyway, that's what prosecutors are saying about Dana McIntyre, 57, of Grafton, Vermont. He's charged with wire fraud and money laundering because he's alleged to have used some of the PPP money to buy alpacas for a farm in Vermont.  He was supposed to use the mon...

Some right wingers (and a few kooks) are mad that Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has decided to do more to prioritize the state's small BIPOC population for Covid vaccinations becausetheir vaccination rates were falling behind.  Vermont Gov Phil Scott, doing something that I thought was sensible, tweeted the following on Thursday:  "If you or anyone in your household identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color (BIPOC), including anyone with Abenaki or other First Nations heritage, all household members who are 16 years or older can sign up to get a vaccine!" Meanwhile, other people under the age of 50 need to wait a couple weeks before they can get themselves appointments for vaccines. Scott did this because Vermont state health officials and many others noticed that the BIPOC community bore a disproportionate share of Covid cases, hospitalizations and death. This same group is lagging behind in vaccination rates. The Vermont statistics say at all. As of Friday, about ...

Owners of this UPS store in Newport, Vermont lost the  business after refusing to comply with mask wearing mandates. Photo via WCAX. Everywhere, including here in Vermont, a few people are incredibly willing to die on the anti-mask hill, with terrible person consequences.  A few end up dying.  Most make fools of themselves. Some ruin themselves financially for no good reason.  It's so illogical. The latest one involves the operators of a UPS franchise in Newport, Vermont.   Weeks ago, they put up a sign in the front door saying they would not wear a mask, customers could choose whether or not to wear a mask, and to please not ask employees to wear masks because they won't.  This goes directly against an executive order Vermont Governor Phil Scott issued last year mandating masks in stores. It also goes directly against UPS policy, which says that face masks are a required part of their uniform and everyone must wear them on the job.  The franchise...

Leave a pile of brush to dry for a year, and then set it on fire, and it really takes off. My back yard burn last month. Looks scary, but all under control.  I know it's not the most environmentally friendly way to get rid of a huge amount of brush, but I do like to make burn piles on my relatively rural Vermont property.  A few weeks ago, I made a nice one! The pile had been sitting there since last winter. Covid restrictions meant I couldn't get a permit for the burn last March and April.  I didn't want to do the burn during the dry weather we had last summer and fall, so I let the pile sit.  The time finally came New Year's weekend. We'd just had some rain and snow, so everything around was either wet or frozen. No chance of starting a nearby forest fire. I was also able to obtain a town permit for the fire this time. With the brush pile having a year to dry out, the fire really took off.  A couple of pieces of paper as kindling, and certainly no accelerates,...