Dan Trim Made Me Do It

Dan has a Mothing Blog (Check it out).
Though moths have always facinated me I don't usually take many photos of them. But it just so happenes that today I spotted an interesting one that I had never seen before. So I'll post it here along with another interesting one that I shot a few years ago.


Beautiful Wood Nymph - Eudryas grata. It's a small (2.2 cm) moth in a huge and diverse Family, Noctuidae also called Owlet Moths.

The second moth, and Eight-spotted Forester, Alypia octomaculata, is also in the Family Noctuidae. Alas, its photo has gone missing this evening. I also had a photo of the larva which is memorable because it causes a painful reaction if you touch one of its many spines.
Until I locate it, there are several good photos on Flickr. This Eight-spotted Forester is by Ms. Gould.
The Forester's larva here is by Roy Niswanger.

Is this How Hemsley at UnitedHealthcare Manages Costs?

Reuters 03/04/2010
This is a recent photo. I wasn't able to find the photo from more than a dozen years ago when he was CFO at the accounting firm of Arthur Anderson LLP.


Open Letter to Mr. Hemsley

May 31, 2010

Mr. Stephen Hemsley
CEO UnitedHealthcare

Dear Mr. Hemsley;
I have a problem and now I want to make it your problem. You see, my medical claims are constantly rejected by your claims processing department. Your claims processing department agrees with me that the error is theirs when I contact them. They will reprocess the claims correctly when I call and point out their error but they only correct the old errors. New claims are processed using the same error.

The error appears to be caused by a default assumption during the processing of claims that Medicare is the first payer. But this default is only true if the group policy is for a company with less than 20 employees. UHC certainly must know that DRS Technologies has more than 20 employees. In fact, DRS has 10,500 employees in 40 plus operating locations in the United States.

How many other people’s claims are treated this way? How many others give up after being told that this policy is legal and they have no other recourse?

If this error is the default, what possible reasons are there? I can think of a few.
• UHC’s claims-processing software has no links to your own data about the group.
• Or, though there are links to that data, a critical field for group size isn’t linked; it was somehow overlooked or considered unimportant or…?
• Or, what I see as a problem is not a problem for UHC because it saves millions of dollars by not paying legitimate claims and delaying payment of millions more?

So I challenge you Mr. Hemsley. Prove to me that UnitedHealthcare has a valid reason for delaying payment of legitimate claims.

Here is a list of my legitimate claims incorrectly processed for that same error.
UHC Claim #
23xxxxx260
23xxxxx659
23xxxxx007
23xxxxx521
23xxxxx296
23xxxxx005
23xxxxx036
24xxxxx985
24xxxxx282
24xxxxx263
24xxxxx098
23xxxxx036
24xxxxx338
24xxxxx897
24xxxxx897
25xxxxx249
25xxxxx792
25xxxxx614
25xxxxx166
25xxxxx369

CC:
Mr. J. Lippincott, Ombudsman, NJ Department of Banking and Insurance
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., Congressman, US House of Representative

Sincerely,
D.A.P.

Our New Home Guard Front Door

Asbury Window and Door in Ocean Township did a fantastic job when we needed a new front door. They had great suggestions and helped us decide the type and color. We chose their Home Guard fiberglass door with a mahogany color exterior and white interior. The installers, Tony and Lee are real professionals. So many people have stopped to say how beautiful it is. With the full sidelights and fanlight, it turns heads.
Thank you so much!
Dennis and Susan.

"Mars, tout change avec la brise"

Thank You Senator Bunning!

Senator Bunning,

Thank you for entering a bit of sanity in the legislative process. Spending billions of tax-payer dollars without a means to pay for those dollars has got to stop.

MY BLOG: On Blogger.com

Dennis Pederson,
Neptune City, NJ


Bunning said again Tuesday that he opposed the extension because it would add $10 billion to the budget deficit, and he attacked Democrats for abandoning promises to pay for legislation instead of contributing to a budget deficits projected to hit almost $1.6 trillion this year. Bunning proposes to pay for the extension with unspent money from last year's massive economic recovery package, but Reid objected.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

Senator Judd Gregg Tells it Like It Is...

US senator warns of ‘financial meltdown’ risk
By Edward Luce in Washington

Published: February 25 2010 22:30


The US is heading for a debt-driven “financial meltdown” within five to seven years, according to Judd Gregg, the outgoing Republican senator for New Hampshire.

In a robust and at times testy video interview for the Financial Times’s View from DC series, Mr Gregg also complimented China for showing rising alarm about the US’s mounting levels of public debt.

We have had China say that they are looking for other places to put their reserves and that is probably a smart decision on their part,” said Mr Gregg, who will not seek re-election in November. “So the warning signs are pretty clear and the path is unsustainable and, at this point, unless we take different actions...

Financial Times of London - FT.com

February is "Fat Tuesday" and "Amore"

Weather Hyped to the Max!

Does weather need to be hyped? Does it need exaggeration worthy of a carny barker?

Case in point:

Issued by The National Weather Service
Philadelphia, PA
10:55 am EST, Wed., Feb. 10, 2010

A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT EST TONIGHT.

A COASTAL STORM DEVELOPING OFF THE CENTRAL MID ATLANTIC COAST WILL INTENSIFY EXPLOSIVELY TODAY. ...

Who writes this stuff?

Temperatures - December 2009 vs. January 2010

As long as I was recording high and low temperatures, I decided I might as well blog some comparison charts.

I'll include the daily averages if I think it will add to or clarify the images.

We have an interesting visitor in our backyard today. A warbler. Specifically a Yellow-rumped Warbler. They commonly winter here in New Jersey but we don't usually see them in the backyard this time of the year. A single individual would go unnoticed in the crowd of sparrows, finches, dee-dees, tufties, etc.

Maybe it's Our Drinking Water?

When did a corporation morph into a person? When was a corporation granted the same rights of an individual citizen?

Thomas Jefferson saw it coming.

"In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of it's government and the probity of it's citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of it's people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it's birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Sidebar
After 34 Years, a Plainspoken Justice Gets Louder
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: January 26, 2010
The New York Times

Justice John Paul Stevens, in what might be his final term, has crafted opinions that suggest the Supreme Court has lost touch with its sense of fair play.