Gary McGath

About Gary McGath

I am a freelance technical writer in Plaistow, NH.

The opaqueness of medical pricing 1

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged economics insurance medicine on by

Go to almost any business for a product or service, and you can expect to be told what it will cost you, or at least to get a plausible estimate. The big exception is medicine. You’re never told what anything will cost. If you press your provider, the best you’ll get is a spread of a couple of orders of magnitude. People sometimes get hit with huge charges that they weren’t prepared for.

I recently experienced a bit of this. My medical provider billed me for $630 for a routine blood test as part of an annual physical. This came as a complete surprise. I called the billing department, and the man who took my call said that I should have been billed only for the copay, with insurance covering the rest. He filed an inquiry on it, which he said might take a couple of weeks to process. This left a big question open: Do blood tests by my provider routinely cost over $600? That’s a lot, regardless of whether I’m paying for it or Medicare is. Since he was working for billing, he wasn’t able to answer that question.
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Moving away from Mastodon 1

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged mastodon on by

For several years I’ve had an account on Liberdon, a Mastodon instance. Recently they announced that only paid accounts, at a minimum of $3 per month, will be allowed, starting in December 2025. That’s perfectly reasonable, but it’s not worth it to me. Expect my posts to disappear soon.

I could move to another instance. However, I haven’t been getting much value out of Mastodon. Most of the people I personally know and follow haven’t been active for a long time. What’s left of my feed is mostly organizations. Discovery between different instances is awkward. If I find an instance I really like, I might move there. Suggestions in the comments are welcome. My account is archived to keep my options open.

This doesn’t affect the Fediverse feed of this blog or my Filknews account. They’ll stay active for the foreseeable future.

Antisemitism in SFF fandom 2

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged fandom racism on by

In 2024, there were some disturbing actions in science fiction/fantasy fandom against people who are from Israel or support its existence. I’ve blogged about some of them before. Vancouver Comics Arts Festival banned an artist for being Israeli. A statement by the convention berated the earlier organizers for their “ignorance” in inviting someone who had served in Israel’s armed forces in the early 2000s. The CRIT awards put a blanket exclusion on nominating anyone who supports Zionism (i.e., supports the existence of a Jewish state). Both sets of bigots got slapped down and are now being less public, but they’ve shown that the problem exists in fandom.
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Another questionable mailing from Judicial Watch

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged Judicial Watch scams on by

Judicial Watch is pouring out the paper junk mail. I keep getting stuff from them, for reasons I don’t know. Their consistent features are deception and petulance. One of their mailings tried to look like a US census form. They demanded that I return it if I wasn’t interested, then sent a follow-up speculating on why I hadn’t.

Given how dishonest their mailings are, I wasn’t particularly worried when I got an envelope from them labelled “LEGAL NOTICE,” but I wondered what trick they were pulling. The mailing includes a “litigation support form” to return with a “yes” sticker placed on this statement: “I fully support the Litigation Efforts of Judicial Watch to EXPOSE and LEGALLY CHALLENGE the outrageous abuse of my tax dollars and to demand in a court of law that DC bureaucrats cut wasteful and fraudulent spending on evil, Marxist, racist and woke programs.” The mailing says on the inside that the form must be returned “Within the Next 72 Hours.”
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When governments fail, individuals step in

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged New Hampshire on by

The federal government has proved to be a single point of failure for many people. They rely, mostly for reasons that aren’t their fault, on federal assistance for daily needs. With the federal shutdown, it may be shut off. Was this properly the job of the federal government in the first place? No, helping people is best done locally and voluntarily. With the Democrats and Republicans fighting it out, it has to come back to that. Thanks to the effort of many people, it is.

There are many local assistance programs which help out people who need it, and they’ve just become a lot more important. Check who’s doing it in your neighborhood, and decide what level of help you can reasonably give. I favor the New Hampshire Food Bank. It’s affiliated with Catholic Charities but keeps religion separate from its mission (unlike the Salvation Army, which I don’t recommend). Many organizations are running food drives, collecting nonperishable donations. Giving money is better, since it lets them buy in bulk, but many people like the feeling of giving stuff that someone else can eat.

Libertarians and classical liberals should be especially ready to do this. We know that the initiative of individuals is the best defense against suffocating and unreliable governmental direction of everything. By providing assistance where it’s really needed, by your own choice, you support freedom.