Hashemian Blog

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In my recent business trip to California, I took a couple of extra days to spend time with my sister. We both grew up in Iran at the base of the Alborz mountains and many weekends outside of the winter season, my father insisted that we accompany him on his hiking trips up the mountains.

I wasn’t exactly a fit kid, so I would try any excuse I could think of to get out of them. On those occasions that I couldn’t wriggle myself out I can describe the hiking experiences as a mixture of torture, sadism, profuse sweating, and exhaustion. Well, at least one of us (my sister) had my father’s pride most of the time.

Times have changed and my father’s semi-tyranny has paid off quite handsomely. If I see a mountain now, usually my first inkling is to scale it.

We hadn’t intended to visit the Joshua Tree National Park on this visit but on a quest to find a decent hiking spot, one road led to another and we ended driving to the park. We entered from the west entrance and almost from the start I was intrigued. This was my first time seeing Joshua trees with their think prickly leaves. The state park resembles the pictures beamed pack from Mars. There were huge boulders piled on top of each other everywhere in the desert and they extended all the way to the horizon.

Happily, the park was relatively devoid of crowds. On the advice of the ranger at the entrance, who collected the $15 entrance fee, we headed for the Ryan Mountain, but not before stopping for a quick walk in the desert. It’s an enthralling yet terrifying experience. There’s absolute stillness and desert beauty, yet you realize that disorientation due to heat and dehydration could lead to death. Who’s ever going find a lost person in that vastness?

Ryan Mountain turned out to be a good choice. We somehow missed the trailhead and wondered about for a bit but eventually picked up the trail further up. There are no real tall mountains in the park. Ryan Mountain, at around 5,500 feet, is probably one of tallest. It offered a relatively steep climb and at the top we were rewarded with beautiful panoramic views of the surrounding landscape and an incessant but pleasant wind. Now I know why there are so many wind farms in the area.

I would have loved to spend more time exploring this splendid place, but time was short. The Joshua Tree national park is one of those places that leaves an indelible mark on your mind. It sure made a unforgettable impression on me, leaving me with the desire to come back again for another visit.

Joshua Tree National Park,joshua tree,deserts,california

With the political party debates getting under way leading to the US presidential election, the subject of national healthcare has once again garnered some attention. In the last go-around, with the male Clinton in the office, national health insurance became a hot topic but was eventually shelved. It is a known fact that the US is the only industrialized country in the world with no national health coverage and many of its citizens have little or no health benefits. Worse yet, there are no meaningful regulations to even protect the working class. That leaves the entire nation's health at the mercy of the market conditions.

Judging by my latest experience I understand why healthcare is such a controversial topic in this country. Recently my company switched our health insurance provider to Oxford. During the introductory meeting, the Oxford representatives repeatedly emphasized that Qwest Diagnostics was no longer a covered provider and we were to use LabCorp for all medical tests to receive any coverage. It was explained that LabCorp was selected because of their superior service to patients. But it was obvious that there had been a fierce showdown between Oxford and Qwest over money and in a retaliatory move Oxford had dropped Qwest as a covered lab. The animosity between the two was blatantly palpable.

To me this was a non-issue. I have no allegiance to Qwest and In my latest visit for a regular blood work I saw little difference between LabCorp and Qwest. What struck me was the bill I received from LabCorp a few weeks later. The actual cost of the blood test was $271.00, but it was adjusted down to $26.88. That means that by being part of the Oxford network, my final bill was discounted by a whopping 90%.

I understand negotiated rates and volume discounts, but how is it that a company charges its clients so much while it can still make a profit at a 90% discount? How could they get away with charging such an outrageous rate, when they obviously do just fine at 10% of that? If I weren't insured, I would be liable for the full $271.

I might be able to accept such disparity if this was for a luxury item, but health coverage should never be considered luxury, should it? And yet, receiving this telling bill, I can understand why uninsured people skip medical care, or buckle under their mounting medical bills. Is it fair that the wealthiest country in the world has left a large portion of its population without proper medical care and the rest at risk of losing what coverage they might have?

health insurance,oxford,qwest,labcorp,blood test,medical bills,national healthcare

I noticed an interesting fact about Digg's registration page today. It's a nice, clean page and, unlike some other sites that ask for everything private but the length of your nose, easy to fill out. The CAPTCHA is a challenge sometimes, but what is a site to do faced with an army of miscreants?

Anyways, the only private question there is the birthday. The day, month, and year fields are all pre-populated drop-downs. That's when I noticed that the year field runs between 1906 and 2006. So let me get this straight, a one month old infant can sign up for Digg, but a 101 year-old senior can't, unless he/she lies about their age. According to the census data there are about 55,000 people in the US with the age 100 or older. There's little doubt that the population of centenarians will continue to rise in the years ahead.

I guess the world really does belong to the young. Alright, I'm not faulting Digg here. I just notice stuff sometimes. We're all guilty of the same sin - writing off the seniors in the society. To borrow a song line from The Who, hope I die before I get old. But most likely their attitude isn’t quite the same anymore. More like, hope I die before I get really really old… well, actually, hope I never die.
digg,centenarians,senior citizens,the who