What is the cost to be reimbursed? "Forest bathing" is simply walking peacefully in some natural setting and noticing the sights, smells, and sounds.
There are "certified Forest Therapy guides." They talk to you while you attempt to focus on the forest. That is, to my mind, they interfere with the focus by telling you to focus. But you, you're such an idiot, you can't focus without some certified, reimbursed professional telling you to focus.
"Close your eyes and just breathe, just breathe," Choukas-Bradley intoned. It felt a bit like a meditation retreat.... "When you open your eyes, imagine you're seeing the world for the very first time," Choukas-Bradley told us....Mm. Yes. So I've heard. Too much money is spent on treating ailments. We wait for people to get sick, and so something like 90% of the money flows to 10% of the people. Never mind that health insurance only works because a lot of people put much more into the pot than they take out. Just insanely imagine that it's unfair that you're not sick, and you're not getting any treatments paid for.
A forest guide "helps you be here, not there," says Amos Clifford, a former wilderness guide with a master's degree in counseling, and the founder of the Association of Nature & Forest Therapy, the organization that certifies the guides.
Clifford's goal is to encourage health care providers to incorporate forest therapy as a stress-reduction strategy. There's no question that stress takes a terrible toll in the United States; a 2015 study found work-related stress accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs each.
IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse said:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
They're paid for by my HMO.
Posts
138 comments:
Hmm. Paying people to guide you through your walk in the woods. Remind me why Health Costs are so high?
I am absolutely not surprised at the genders of the people in pictures at the link.
The mosquito experience brings you back.
Damn, I've practiced this all over the Cascades and Olympic peninsula for decades and not a single penny of government or insurance company money have I received! Fork it over!
"Forest bathing" is simply walking
Forest therapy is walking and a forest guide is a walker. For quicker results, use a dirt bike.
"certified Forest Therapy guides."
I wouldn't be surprised if most Forest Therapy guides are "certifiable".
Sounds like a good benefit for MediCal, the California version of Medicaid. When I was reviewing Workers Comp claims we saw payments for treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome with "out of body experience." A GOP Senator ended that scam with a ew law but the GOP is in a long hibernation there now.
The entitled "give me something-everything for free" attitude of progressives will turn us into a slave state, idiocracy and epic fail.
The equipment required for this therapy is an all-organic artisanal forest, with woody notes and floral undertones.
Can I get reimbursed for prostitute bathing? It certainly boosts my mood, and likely gives my immune system a work-out at the same time.
Whose woods these are I think I know. They're paid for by my HMO.
I took a crap in the forest once.
I found that the chirping crickets, tweeting birds and the sound of running water really helped.
Where's my check?
Sitting in the woods and contemplating nature while waiting for a deer to walk within range of my bow is supremely relaxing.
Finding the right forest guide is very stressful.
I prefer my youngest son and daughter.
America the beautiful. It's more than just words. The Hudson River Valley painters school started publicizing it in the Adirondacks. There were soon rustic retreats like the one in Dirty Dancing. They are traditional. We still have one like it at the High Hampton Inn in Cashiers NC. The elevation is 4,000 feet, so summer is cool enough. The kids can roam free in safe activities.
My grand parents went there for 2 weeks every year. And it is intentionally very rustic. The 9 hole golf course is nice, but built circa 1900 it has 330 yard par 4s.
A dog would also be a good option.
Just insanely imagine that it's unfair that you're not sick, and you're not getting any treatments paid for.
This is actually why health care is so expensive and why insurance premiums are sky rocketing.
You are FORCED to buy a product. Forced to buy a product that does things you don't want or don't need, yet you MUST pay.
Because the product provides all these nifty services, that you don't really need ALL the time, but you aren't using them, you feel cheated somehow. You PAID by force but you didn't use all the services. BY GOD!!!! I'm gonna get my money's worth.
It's like going to a restaurant and everyone pays the same price for a lobster and steak dinner. Everyone! But all you really wanted was a grilled cheese sandwich, yet you have to pay for the surf and turf. You see people all around you eating the expensive meal but you are forced to pay the same. Pretty soon you feel like a prime chump and decide....screw it. I'll eat the lobster and steak and what the heck....lets have some creme brulee too!!
And here I had been thinking that "forest bathing" was about pretty co-eds from the local university skinny dipping within range of my binoculars. Dang!
It's WNPR, which is totally not connected to NPR!
I believe Wordsworth already covered this topic.
And it's NPR, which has nothing to do with WNPR.
Rasta Dale is our guide here on Spaceship Earth. He wants us to call him 'The Supreme' now. We can't even tend our own gardens because of all the rules.
I like to think Robert Sigenthaler is a more just, verdant and peaceful leader.
"The equipment required for this therapy is an all-organic artisanal forest, with woody notes and floral undertones."
Perfect!
Forest Walking is just as good. We call it Golf.
"Taos Herb Company offers these important sacred herbs in honor of those who continue to practice the old ways. We have found the finest, hand made Smudge sticks of Sage and Cedar, California White sage, and Sweetgrass."
Only $6.95 for a big handful of sacred sage, the dominant life-form around here, which explains the absence of ghosts.
Ralph L said...
It's WNPR, which is totally not connected to NPR!
WNPR means We're Not Public Radio.
Forest guides will also be able to help with cost containment later on. They can lead people out into the forest and leave them there.
"Now open your eyes and imagine you are seeing a Grizzly bear for the first time..."
"Just insanely imagine..."
You ain't got to be tellin' me twice.
I might add that it's a good thing for the women on the forest bathing experience that they did not go into the Potomac River there at Roosevelt Island. The City of Alexandria dumps sewage overflow into a creek that is a tributary of the Potomac so the e. coli count can be high at times. (Yes, Alexandria is downstream of Roosevelt Island, but the Potomac is tidal up to Georgetown.)
I've been to Roosevelt Island a couple times. You certainly will hear the sounds of traffic from there, so I advise anyone wanting a true forest experience to go camping in the Shenandoah Valley. Just watch out for black bears.
Somebody needs to pay for my fishing habit.
Whose woods these are I think I know. They're paid for by my HMO
Perfection.
What about those who live in grassland or deserts or urban areas and are not "forest-privileged"? It seems wrong not to give them stress-relief subsidies if the government should choose to do so for the forest folk.
This is another (potential) example of how insurance coverage is forced to expand and one of the major factors in why health insurance is so expensive. Fifty years ago, most insurance policies only covered "major medical" events -- if you weren't hospitalized, the expense most likely wasn't covered. Since most situations didn't require being admitted to the hospital, insurance protection was reasonably affordable. Though affordable, the insurance provided protection for what otherwise might have been a catastrophic cost.
Over the years, various groups have lobbied to have insurance cover additional costs, such as 'out-patient' surgeries. The argument made sense: Why not cover a surgery done in a doctor's office if the same surgery would have been covered if done in a hospital? Doing it in the doctor's office saved the insurance company money. Then came, why not pay for routine medical exams? Those save insurance companies money be preventing something that might require expensive treatment later. Then came.... As each new thing that should be covered was advocated for, either the insurance companies yielded to public pressure (in the form of bad PR campaigns in the media) or state governments began mandating the coverage.
The end result is now insurance is paying for routine every day expenses that are not the kind of risks it makes economic sense to insure against. It's like having your auto insurance policy pay for routine car washes. Now, they're advocating having insurance pay for a pine tree shaped air freshener to hang from your mirror. Sure, you used to buy such air freshener for $1.95 at the auto parts store, but now that its covered by insurance they cost $25.
Look for minor female deities associated with landforms, in forest bathing.
I used to do that here in Montana, but that was 40 years ago. Bears, lions and wolves more in abundance now. Thanks, enviros!
Instead of paying for stress releiving treatments, why don't we forbid business practices that cause stress?
We're good at forbidding things.
Hmmm.....
In my youth I spent many an hour lifting my spirits in the woods near my parents house!
Of course it involved beer and slutty high school girls, but that's as maybe!
I recall all the sob stories on network news since the 1960s about this or that "new" ailment not covered by insurance!! or some elderly living situation where the victim could not get SS. I swear I recall each and every one. So the benefits were stretched and stretched..and here we are.
So forgive me if I seem a little harsh.
OT
Eat like Horatio Hornblower
Who never was a glutton.
Savor your peas and eat your corn slower
And don't attack the mutton.
The end result is now insurance is paying for routine every day expenses that are not the kind of risks it makes economic sense to insure against.
Good explanation. Doctors did a lot of this to themselves. Pediatricians complained about competing with HMOs for well baby care so it began to be "covered" and insurance premiums went up and more people joined HMOs.
tcrosse, you are very entertaining today!
Just insanely imagine that it's unfair that you're not sick, and you're not getting any treatments paid for.
Why is that insane, though? That's basically one of the central arguments of the pro-Obmacare people, isn't it? Especially with regard to all the "free stuff" OCare gives out, right?
Why should women have to pay for something like birth control out of pocket? Just being a woman is "sickness" enough, so those "treatments" should be paid for by everyone else.
I mean, I didn't think it made much sense but lots of nice centrist people like yourself bought into those kinds of arguments and now we have Obamacare. Is it really so insane if it convinced all of you??
Ralph L said...
It's WNPR, which is totally not connected to NPR!
I believe Wordsworth already covered this topic.
And it's NPR, which has nothing to do with WNPR.
And this, Professor Althouse, is precisely why you should post on the fact that the controversy promoted by Milo Yiannopulos has now been irrefutably resolved. I was right, and your many of the ignorant regulars among your commentariat were wrong to have argued with me.
The kind of humor invoked by Ralph L relies on the fact that there are still lots of people who didn't like my writing on that subject, and so are amenable to an inside joke among the faithful; but notably, an inside joke that ignores the fact that, yep, "NPR" never did spike any Milo interview, and yes, the Milo interview that WNPR produced aired on WNPR just as WNPR emails at the time suggested.
Blogger Carol said...
"I used to do that here in Montana, but that was 40 years ago. Bears, lions and wolves more in abundance now. Thanks, enviros!"
Take a gun with you.
Preventive care sounds great in theory, but there are scams aplenty. A gym membership is the most obvious preventive care expenditure that many insurers cover. Should we be also using health insurance dollars to pay for optional yoga classes at the gym? Hey, it relieves stress and improves flexibility. I'm sure it helps prevents some ailments in some people. What about a personal trainer? At least those things don't put you at risk of Lyme disease. A staph infection is possible, however.
I'd like insurance to pay for a personal chef so I can healthful food decisions more easily.
I find shooting relieves stress. Will the health care system buy my ammo if I call it Range Bathing?
"Just being a woman is "sickness" enough, so those "treatments" should be paid for by everyone else."
1. Provide "free" healthcare.
2. Turn every desire into a medical condition.
3. Worker's Paradise!
In Germany,if you are stressed out and your doctor prescribes it , health insurance will pay for a couple weeks at a spain the alps. And it doesn't count as vacation, it's considered sick leave. So this is really not so ridiculous.
Everything government controls becomes a jobs program. This is welfare for people who consider work too crass for them.
I am all for insurance companies supporting preventative care such as reimbursing one for x number of workouts recorded in a gym, as Unity does here in Madison, soon to be discontinued unfortunately, but most preventative care such as a walk in the woods or eating less are up to the individual, but in this whacked out opioid dependent culture that can't fill high paying manufacturing jobs without importing foreign labors, maybe we should pay people to pull others into the forest?
Never argue the minutiae of NPR with a life long Republican -- they're the experts!
So you go for a walk in the woods and have to talk the whole time? That sounds awful
I go for walks in a forest once or twice a week and I would be deeply irritated if we came across a forest therapist out there who told me how to walk correctly. City people are cut off from nature and are surprised to learn that exercise out in the woods is good for physical and mental health.
Hey if you live in South Central Los Angeles and have never been to Yosemite--and maybe not even been to the beach although it's only six miles away, "forest bathing" can be expensive. You've got to get there to "bathe". So maybe Obamacare could provide bus fare and meal vouchers for those who otherwise could not get to the forest?
Tradguy
High Hampton was recently sold. Expect they will immediately "modernize" with air conditioned rooms, dispense with ties at dinner, stop the evening games of horse racing, make the place non smoking. Shame. But for twenty yesrs I saw the patriarch at the head of the family tables filled with happy children and unhappy parents eager for the old man to croak so they could take the money and go to Sea Island.
We need to get over the idea that if something is "good" or beneficial in some measure that the government ought to pay for it.
Freder Frederson said...
In Germany,if you are stressed out and your doctor prescribes it , health insurance will pay for a couple weeks at a spain the alps."
Gee, Europe is so wonderful. Just unlimited money for everything.
Freder Frederson said...
"In Germany,if you are stressed out and your doctor prescribes it , health insurance will pay for a couple weeks at a spain the alps."
German doctor: "Oh no. Here comes that crazy Mr Schmitz. He is such a spain in the alps."
Churning the old folks to use Medicare and Supplements is a big industry that exists to loot the Feds. They even have a new part of that industry that contacts old people to find out what free services they can use, and Medicare pays these frauds for the phone calls, and then has your required screening physician bill you too, and they split the cash between them.
Conning old folks to take free stuff is a massive totally corrupt system disguised as Healthcare.
"And this, Professor Althouse, is precisely why you should post on the fact that the controversy promoted by Milo Yiannopulos has now been irrefutably resolved. "
You are so cute when you are wrong.
Achilles said...
"And this, Professor Althouse, is precisely why you should post on the fact that the controversy promoted by Milo Yiannopulos has now been irrefutably resolved. "
You are so cute when you are wrong.
Wrong? About what, exactly?
Thanks to global warmening, we won't be able to push the elderly out to sea on ice floes anymore so the forest might come in handy.
Sitting in the woods and contemplating nature while waiting for a deer to walk within range of my bow is supremely relaxing.
Bow, schmow. I prefer a Weatherby Mark V Hannibal chambered to fire a .577 Tyrannosaur cartridge. But I get your point.
Imagine my disappointment when I realized this had nothing to do with warshing "big ol pussies".
Blogger Freder Frederson said...
"In Germany,if you are stressed out and your doctor prescribes it , health insurance will pay for a couple weeks at a spain the alps. And it doesn't count as vacation, it's considered sick leave. So this is really not so ridiculous."
You really can't parody these people. They are just that stupid.
@Roughcoat, please post a YouTube video of you shooting a .577 T-Rex. I'd like to see how far it knocks you on your butt.
But out of curiosity, when did Weatherby make a version of the Mark V that chambers a .557? To my knowledge (and confirmed by going to the Weatherby web site), the most powerful cartridge any Mark V is chambered for is the .460 Mag. Which is a pretty heavy hitter.
Forest bathing...so THAT'S what Hillary was doing out there. Maybe she had Eleanor Roosevelt as her guide.
Instead of paying for "preventive care" like gym memberships insurance companies should administer simple fitness tests.
(1) I wonder if there are certified Toilet Cleaner Guides out there yet. People who dont actually clean your washroom, they just mentor you along as you do it yourself. In the interests of focusing on your mental health / encouraging mindfulness.
(2) Hmm, why stop at asking for walk in the woods with a certified guide who gets paid via insurance, rather than via your own $?
All citizens should find a way to get paid themselves out of "Health Care"! Citizens could start to claim the costs of basic household cleaning duties for themselves. Health Promotion = everything, as long as it has Good Intentions
"Hey, I did the dishes, instead of throwing them in the yard, where, over time it might have resulted in a public health hazard. What with the vermin and all. I'm a certified preventative medical specialist (dishwasher level 2). Government needs to pay me! Think of the costs I saved the system!!"
"And this, Professor Althouse, is precisely why you should post on the fact that the controversy promoted by Milo Yiannopulos has now been irrefutably resolved. I was right, and your many of the ignorant regulars among your commentariat were wrong to have argued with me."
What are you saying -- that because some edited stuff was ultimately used, Milo is proved wrong that the full interview was spiked? Give me a link that "irrefutably resolves" that or discusses what actually happened and I might do a post. Otherwise, it's just a messy story that isn't important enough to talk about. I'm supposed to figure out the way it's unclear and explain that? If I were paid to do it I would. Hit the PayPal button and donate $1,000 to that project and I'll do it. Otherwise, bleh.
I'll accept multiple donations if they indicate they want the NPR/Milo story and add up to at least $1,000. I'm willing to do the job of writing one post on this subject, for pay. That's my price.
I'll accept multiple donations if they indicate they want the NPR/Milo story and add up to at least $1,000. I'm willing to do the job of writing one post on this subject, for pay. That's my price.
And you're worth at least twice the price. I'd pony up, but I don't think my insurance would cover it.
I'll accept multiple donations if they indicate they want the NPR/Milo story and add up to at least $1,000. I'm willing to do the job of writing one post on this subject, for pay. That's my price.
For that kind of money you should eat some Egg Salad too. It's not like you could taste it, am I right?
I live near Central Park in NYC and go there all the time. Lots of trees and green stuff. It really does refresh the spirits, but I suppose it's closer to a sponge bath than to full on forest bathing........Many wanderers a n Yosemite have encountered grizzlies and found it to be a life altering experience. Forest shock therapy can really change your mood.
leave it to the left to take something that is already free, and make it costly and punitive to others.
Achilles! You fed the troll. Don't do that. I've been very proud of the Althouse commentariat lately for having fun without resorting to you-know-what-ism. Much nicer reading! A beautiful blog!
Keep it up.
Feel free to propose other topics you'd like to see a post about. I will give you my price. Of course, I will only promise to do a post on the subject. You don't get your money back if you don't like the way it was written.
Can't we just self-identify as being healthy? Isn't that one of the new facebook categories?
"Forest bathing...so THAT'S what Hillary was doing out there"
Not a pleasant visual. But I'm sure Laslo could somehow make the best of it.
Walks in the woods now need to be mediated by some kind of health-care bureaucracy? Is there anything upper-middle-class white women can't ruin?
This is a GReAT scam! Can the Park Service and Forest Service get in on this?
Socialists want socialism. They have more or less failed to make whole economies socialist, but they can make chunks of an economy socialist. First, make an industry wholly government controlled--healthcare, for example. Then, define an increasing number of goods and services as being part of healthcare. What things could be part of this? Well, actual heath care, leisure, fitness, education (mostly govt. controlled already), food, housing.
Bob Boyd said...
I find shooting relieves stress. Will the health care system buy my ammo if I call it Range Bathing?
You're a genius Bob Boyd. "Lead Therapy!" You and me, we're gonna turn this thing around.
Plus, let's see...lots of studies show interacting with cuddly pets lowers stress (and blood pressure, etc) so why wouldn't my health insurance cover out of pocket expenses for dog and cat food?
Cha-ching!
"Bow, schmow. I prefer a Weatherby Mark V Hannibal chambered to fire a .577 Tyrannosaur cartridge. But I get your point."
WI Bow Deer Season: 16 September to 7 January 2018
WI Gun Deer Season: 18-26 November
I require longer periods of forest therapy. Perhaps I can use sick days?
A few years ago Michelle Obama met with Marsha Barbour, then first lady of Mississippi, on a visit to the state. The two first ladies discussed physical fitness in children and Mrs Barbour told Mrs Obama about how she promoted a walking program for children in Mississippi's schools. Mrs Obama asked how she funded the program. I recall saying to myself "Walking is free!" Then I reflected upon how effectiveness and the end result were side issues when compared to funding.
Ann Althouse said...
...
What are you saying -- that because some edited stuff was ultimately used, Milo is proved wrong that the full interview was spiked? Give me a link that "irrefutably resolves" that or discusses what actually happened and I might do a post. Otherwise, it's just a messy story that isn't important enough to talk about. I'm supposed to figure out the way it's unclear and explain that? If I were paid to do it I would. Hit the PayPal button and donate $1,000 to that project and I'll do it. Otherwise, bleh.
No. What I have posted previously (emailing the link to you a day ago) was seen here:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6329595&postID=2175445174671046081&page=1&token=1501512024660
Quite simply, the facts were these.
~Milo began the dispute by accusing "NPR" of effectively spiking an interview that he gave to Colin McEnroe of WNPR.
~Milo's readily-apparent confusion was whether "Colin McEnroe = NPR." Milo was wrong.
~I knew it immediately, and posted to that effect when Althouse pulled the story (off of Drudge) and did a blog post.
~There began a huge fight and a 300+ comments page. People wanted to fight me; they wanted me to be wrong.
~In the midst of our fight, Snopes.com weighed in, doing a short story on their findings as to whether Milo's charge was true or not. Snopes found Milo's charge to have been unfounded. I posted the link to the Snopes page.
~The argument basically ended there, but not before I predicted that WNPR would someday be airing the Milo interview, and that I'd be back, to spike the football, to say "I told you so," and basically be a prick about it given the abuse that was heaped on me in the original argument.
~On July 24, the Milo interview aired on WNPR's "The Coln McEnroe Show." Which was the show that produced the interview. ("NPR," for the umpteenth time, never produced, owned or "spiked" the interview.) On that show date, the broadcast featured two main segments; one was about Steve Bannon, and the other was an edited version of the Milo interview. WNPR always posts podcasts of its segments on its own website, and did so in this case. Additionally, WNPR posted the full, unedited Milo interview to Soundcloud (where you can still listen to it now) with a hyperlink to that Soundcloud page posted at the webpage for the Colin McEnroe Show.
So, to sum up:
1) Milo was wrong. NPR didn't produce his interview. NPR didn't own his interview, didn't edit it, didn't have any control over broadcasting it. WNPR did all of that. NPR and WNPR are not the same. They are operated independently.
2) I argued all of that at the time. I was right.
3) The fact that Milo was wrong, and that the Snopes investigation of the matter was accurate, was proven by WNPR's airing of the interview exactly as was outlined in the exchange of emails that Snopes was provided by WNPR. Including emails from WNPR to Milo's publicists.
4) The Althouse blog and Drudge both furthered the reach of Milo's original, erroneous, claim. And now that the interview has been aired and posted online, it is clearer still that Milo was mistaken, and that he was wrong to claim that "NPR" was involved, and further wrong to claim that his interview would be spiked.
Milo Yiannopulos put out fake news. While "putting out fake news" is probably one of the least of Milo's sins, it's still a fact. He was wrong to blame "NPR," and wrong to claim that his interview was spiked.
And after Milo put out his fake news, Drudge and Althouse helped spread that fake news.
The links that I have previously posted in comments on this blog:
The craptastically-erroneous Milo story, posted on the Atlhouse blog:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-milo-yiannopoulis-interview-milo.html
The Snopes.com investigation of the story. (Snopes updated the story, after I emailed to them the WNPR link.):
http://www.snopes.com/2017/07/19/milo-yiannopoulos-npr/
The WNPR (broadcast) link:
http://wnpr.org/post/scramble-how-alt-right-influenced-2016-election
And the WNPR Soundcloud link:
https://soundcloud.com/wnpr/milo-yiannopoulos-on-the-colin-mcenroe-show
Professor, if you have a "price" for doing a corrective to an erroneous story that your blog helped spread, I cannot help you. I am trying to imagine the post you'd write, if the New York Times told you that they would run a correction to a story that you critiqued, if only you will buy some of their stock, or purchase some advertising, or buy some of their NYT-logo products.
Any health fad starts out as a scam before it turns into a racket.
Boring, Chuck.
You've got nothing about cause and effect. When something is done after the criticism, how do you know it's not because of the criticism?
Geez Chuck
Give it a rest.
Get your own effing blog!
Chuck
Please give us a bit more on the Milo "controversy." Pages and pages. Please. I don't think you have quite convinced us. LOL.
Achilles
Your idea is excellent and like most excellent ideas pretty basic. Have insurance companies perform fitness tests to determine cost of premiums. But what about the fatties? The gigantic underclass?
Isn't it possible NPR only ran the story after Milo posted the interview and accused them of wanting to spike it?
Chuck, you would be more likely to persuade me to do something if you didn't come on so strong — demanding and accusing. It's a boring story and I'm not inclined to figure it out. But your assholery makes me less willing, not more.
exhelodrvr1 said...
Can't we just self-identify as being healthy? Isn't that one of the new facebook categories?
I'm pretty sure none of the new facebook categories are healthy.
"Isn't it possible NPR only ran the story after Milo posted the interview and accused them of wanting to spike it?"
Yes, that's what I meant to imply at 11:45 AM.
Please, don't make me read any fucking more about Milo on this thread about meditation and walking in the forest with someone certified! to help mel . Please.
"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And Milo to go before I sleep,
And Milo to go before I sleep."
LLR
Ann Althouse said...
"Boring, Chuck."
Chucksplaining: for when mansplaining isn't patronizing enough.
I am Laslo.
Or, in the alternative, could we have a Chuck Only post of the day where we could concentrate on his deep thoughts? And confine it to that post? Or a whole new alternative Althouse devoted to Milo and Chuck?
Trouble is, there's little evidence that 'preventive care' really prevents anything. It's more myth than anything. Even screenings are dicey.
I'd like to see how far it knocks you on your butt.
About two feet, give or take.
Ann Althouse said...
"Isn't it possible NPR only ran the story after Milo posted the interview and accused them of wanting to spike it?"
Yes, that's what I meant to imply at 11:45 AM.
Well, first, you seem to have failed to grasp that it wasn't "NPR" at all; that was Milo's original mistake.
And actually, Althouse, I get the impression that that's a little detail that you don't even want to understand. If you choose to ignore that fact, it's on you.
Second, if anybody read the emails that Snopes obtained, you'd have seen how it was that WNPR planned to schedule the interview all along, at least after they changed the recording-time per Milo's publicist's request. There is ZERO evidence that WNPR did anything unusual in the scheduling of the broadcast. None. Milo had none. Breitbart found none. Althouse has none.
I am not trying to be "interesting" for any of you. I am not trying to help. I am trying to be right.
Big Mike @10:39 AM:
The truth is, it didn't knock me back at all, because I've only ever fired it prone or seated. Very painful to the shoulder, however.
No woodland experience is complete without blackflies. Mosquitos aren firecrackers to the Blackfly's atomic bite!
Last time I did forest therapy, I contracted limes disease, and the cure was covered by insurance.
Chuck got lost in the woods once, but he was found by a blind squirrel.
Good heavens. Life is now an early Woody Allen movie.
Glad that you are looking at other ways to make $ from your blog. How about subscription only podcast interviews with various interesting folks?
Althouse and Meade should bill each other's health care for the walks they take together. It's mutual support therapy, right? I'm sure there's somewhere online you can get certified.
@Roughcoat, where did you find a Weatherby chambered for the .577 T-Rex? Not that I plan to buy one; I already shoot .577 ammo at the North-South Skirmish Association. Of course we're talking replicas of Civil War ammo coming out of Civil War vintage (or modern replicas thereof) single shot muzzle-loading muskets. Unbelievable that people actually fought a war with those guns.
Female reporter: If you could've found out what Milo meant, I bet that would've explained everything.
Jerry Thompson: No, I don't think so; no. Chuck was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Milo was something he couldn't get, or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything... I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Milo is just a... piece in a jigsaw puzzle... a missing piece.
Big Mike said...
Unbelievable that people actually fought a war with those guns.
You go to war with the guns you have...
@Big Mike,
I was joking. I've only shot the .460.
As I said, it didn't knock me on my butt because I was prone and seated. But it hurt like a bastard.
This concept is similar to the way politicians view any kind of education or experience related to the arts. Take a simple, natural phenomenon - inherent human creativity or a simple walk in the woods, and render it acceptable by wringing it through some sort of top-down, over-analyzed, bureaucratic process. In Seattle, citizens are voting on a sales tax increase to fund children's field trips to museums, ect. Of course, everyone is all: THINK of the children, they need to get on a bus and troop over to the museum to inspire creativity!!!!!
For fuck's sake, kids can get a better experience of creativity by sticking them in a room full of various materials and telling them to build something. Its the same idea that holds "education" only happens in a proper, university setting. Creative, artistic opportunities abound if one opens up their mind. Leave it to bureaucrats to completely strip true creativity from the cultural experience.
@Roughcoat, I can believe it! I've seen videos of experienced shooters shooting a .460 Mag offhand and getting knocked backwards.
@Ignorance, it didn't have to be that way. The South was stuck with muzzle-loaders because it was all they could do to make them (using tooling captured from Harpers Ferry) and acquire them as surplus from Europe. The North had the technology to make breechloaders like the Sharps and repeaters like the Henry (a forerunner of the Winchester lever action rifle) and the Spencer. The head of the Ordnance Department, General Ripley, refused to issue them for fear that the soldiers would "waste ammunition." When the South captured a repeater they could only use it until the captured ammo ran out because they lacked the manufacturing capacity to make metallic cartridges on their own.
Brian Regan's take on certain LifeLongRepublican's approach to open discussions
I am not trying to be "interesting" for any of you.
Success!
It's my hope that party members will be provided dachas outside of Moscow strictly for the therapeutic value of the forest.
Many wanderers a n Yosemite have encountered grizzlies and found it to be a life altering experience.
Sorry, there are no grizzlies in the Sierras. In my years of hiking the Sierras mainly Sequoia, Tuolumne meadows, and Mammoth Lakes area, I've encountered many black bears - moms with cubs, single males, young bears frolicking in the meadows. The moms with cubs can be fun when they send the cubs up a tree when we get near. On more than one occasion, I wouldn't have seen the bear if she didn't have her cubs noisily climbing a tree. Only one bear in forty years of hiking, made me change my course to avoid it. Not much of a life altering experience.
People's reactions and fear of bears can lead to all sorts of strange behaviors. We were hiking the Forbidden Plateau on Vancouver Island, when a lone woman hiker was clapping her hands every step to "alert the bears". She joined us to have some additional protection against the wildlife. We normally like to see creatures when we walk but with her tagging along and gabbing, we had no chance.
Please, if you know so little about hiking that you have to hire a "certified Forest Therapy guide", stay out of the forest and hike in a public park. For you, the effect will be almost the same. For me, it won't ruin my forest experience.
Socialized health care systems move away from medicine to pseudo medicine, which is much cheaper and can be provided to more people. For a socialized health care system it make more sense to schlepp a couple of thousand people through the forrest that to provide treatment to a single person suffering from some acute leukemia. You get thousand happy voter rather than one (possibly a couple more considering the family). Pseudo medicine is the future. Switch from highly trained professionals to forrest therapists for the masses. Keep specialized medicine for society's avant guard.
You can't spell schmuck without c-h-u-c-k.
"I am all for insurance companies supporting preventative care such as reimbursing one for x number of workouts recorded in a gym,"
Because it makes sense for your insurer to pay $X to the gym, plus the cost of handling the payment as a claim, plus profit (if it's a for-profit insurer) than just paying the $X out-of-pocket yourself?
Or unless it actually costs your insurer less to offer insurance with gym membership than to offer insurance without that benefit? Except that's not very likely.
A public-health case can be made for mandatory coverage of certain preventive-health procedures, (e.g., vaccinations against contagious diseases) when these produce a public good.
And "free" preventive care may improve quality of life as well. But, it will almost surely do so at a nonzero price, as most preventive healthcare just doesn't come close to paying for itself.
(Then again, if insurers start paying for gym then the gyms may start charging private-pay customers $300./mo instead of the $14.75/mo the insurer has negotiated. And even if you're insured, you may find that although the gym is in-network, the trainer who led your fitness class is not, and thus receive a massive, unexpected "balance bill." As happens now when you are treated in an in-network emergency room yet receive massive "balance bills" from the out-of-network physicians who work there.)
I can't think of anything LESS tranquil, relaxing, stress relieving than tromping noisily through the forest with someone yammering at you the whole time to breathe, telling you how to admire and experience nature. SHUT UP!!!!
If you want to commune with nature, find a quiet spot, preferably shady and near a stream or other small rivulet of water. Sit on a rock or a grassy spot.....and SHUT UP!. Listen to the sounds, the birds, insects, leaves falling, wind rustling, water trickling. Lay back and watch the sky through the leaves. Watch the clouds scudding above. Smell the earth. Smell the green vegetation. Feel the moisture and softness of the shade. Feel the dryness and life giving heat of the sun when it moves across your body. Hear your own breath. Close your eyes, feel and listen. Think about your place in the universe.
Why do you need another person to spoil all that with their versions of what is important and what it means and yack yack yacking at you?
If you do it that way, it won't be "certified", DBQ! ;-)
Why do you need another person to spoil all that with their versions of what is important and what it means and yack yack yacking at you?
8/1/17, 2:46 PM
It's like every little experience in life as to be turned into a goddamned college course, with an instructor and praise if you do it right.
In an unregulated insurance market insurers probably would give discounts for things like Forest Bathing. OK, maybe not forest bathing per se, but they would give discounts for signs of good health, like low blood pressure and a healthy weight, kind of like when I bought life insurance. Flip that around, though, and you have pre-existing conditions, and that gets people up in arms. But how many pre-existing conditions are actually for things that are at least somewhat in our control, like obesity and smoking?
Big Mike @1:19 PM:
Oh, man, I can't imagine shooting that beast offhand! In the event, it darn near broke my shoulder. Gave me a deep bruise that didn't go away for several weeks. Of course, I could have exercised restraint by not shooting it several times. But where's the fun in restraint.
It belonged to a friend. He and another friend and I went hunting for elk long ago in the San Juan Mountains outside Durango. We didn't see any elk because there was no snow that October, an uncommon occurrence -- they were all off loitering in some inaccessible high pasture where the green grass was plentiful and the humans were few. So we spent our time just below treeline banging away with our rifles at various targets, betting on our shots. I had a Remington 7mm magnum, which was a considerable weapon. But compared to that Weatherby it was a popgun. The owner joked that he got it because he wasn't entirely convinced that dinosaurs were extinct in Colorado. He later went off to San Salvador and then Afghanistan to become a mercenary. But the mercenaries he contacted wouldn't have anything to do with him, sent him home, because they thought he was crazy. I wonder why.
"I am all for insurance companies supporting preventative care such as reimbursing one for x number of workouts recorded in a gym,"
Because it makes sense for your insurer to pay $X to the gym, plus the cost of handling the payment as a claim, plus profit (if it's a for-profit insurer) than just paying the $X out-of-pocket yourself?
Also, "recorded" workout? Now the insurance company needs a means to verify that you're doing enough to be worth the reimbursement, and not plodding along at 1.2mph on a treadmill, or spotting someone else's weightlifting... or sitting in a hot tub.
Also not free.
And open to all kinds of lawsuits if they "deny" your "workout". Or, at minimum, customer-service hours explaining the denial, if they lawcraft the policy such that you have no legal recourse against a denial.
All of which won't be free.
The automotive-insurance equivalents are a bit easier to handle. The accelerometer mounted in the car doesn't require constant human monitoring, nor adjustment to the general health of the driver over time. It just has to record and report any out-of-safe-range changes in velocity. Defensive-driving courses are one-off things that don't require constant human intervention, either.
Dear Chuck,
You are a colossal bore. Have a nice day.
-Friendo
exhelodrvr1: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep...
No comma after "dark", exhelodrvr1. One of those rare cases where the meaning of the Oxford comma is demonstrated by its absence.
Michael said...
Achilles
Your idea is excellent and like most excellent ideas pretty basic. Have insurance companies perform fitness tests to determine cost of premiums. But what about the fatties? The gigantic underclass?
One of the Consequences for being fat are you are generally less healthy.
Being fat is a choice. Don't be fat.
Chuck said...
...
That's about all the honesty in that pile of words. Assertions and a Snopes link. Snopes!
You are a moby chuck. nobody cares. No republican, conservative, or really anything other than a hardcore leftist would defend NPR using links from snopes.
You are a boring waste of time. Chuck quota more than used up for the day.
You are still cute though. Pointless. Ineffectual. But cute. I am going to go make sure there is one less member of the uniparty elected in 2018...
If you do it that way, it won't be "certified", DBQ! ;-)
True. But then, if I did it the other way someone is going to get punched in the nose and it isn't going to be me. I'll stick with my method }-D
Just insanely imagine that it's unfair that you're not sick, and you're not getting any treatments paid for.
Good health is just another form of privilege. I've started a list of my privileges. So far I've got white, cognitive and, now, health.
High pressure jobs don't necessarily lead to debilitating stress. Some people thrive on pressure. Some people perform best when they're under pressure. I was that way to an extent. Now that I no longer work, I catch myself trying to induce pressure. Procrastination works well for that, I've found.
Just going out on my back deck is like going to the forest. Do you suppose I could deduct its maintenance as a medical expense?
Damn, I've practiced this all over the Cascades and Olympic peninsula for decades and not a single penny of government or insurance company money have I received! Fork it over!
Me, too, Cracker. Where do we go for our reimbursements?
Honestly, there are some idiot articles featured here but this one takes the cake. The cookies and ice cream, too.
Jeeze. It was a good read till Chuck happened.
OT, but for those who don't know about the T-Rex. Been away from shooting websites, not seen this for several years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrImp-ek3bI
Feel free to propose other topics you'd like to see a post about. I will give you my price. Of course, I will only promise to do a post on the subject. You don't get your money back if you don't like the way it was written.
The high-res version is $150.
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...
Jeeze. It was a good read till Chuck happened.
"Ralph L" took this particular comments page off-topic with the scarcely-veiled attack on me. I'm not sorry that I called Althouse out on this subject. I've lost much respect for her, for having buried her head in the sand over the Milo-initiated falsehoods.
I am quite happy to go to any lengths, to narrow the whole story down to its Milo-disproving essentials.
I'm not trying to friendly, or interesting, or conversational, or part of any community. I am trying very hard to be right, and accurate.
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