Saving money on health care

Bring back "hospitalization only" insurance policies.  Back before I became eligible for Medicare, there were two kinds of insurance policies.  The pricey, $12K a year, covers everything, no deductibles policy.  It would pay for doctor's office visits, yearly physicals, pills, everything.  Or, the $3K "hospitalization only" policy which only paid for things serious enough to put you in the hospital.  Everything else, doctor's office visits, pills, physicals, MRI's, you name it, you paid for it out of pocket.  On the other hand, the $9K saving on the policy would pay for a lot of incidentals.  If you were in decent health, and had some ready cash, the "hospitalization only" policy could save you a LOT of money. 
   Plus, since you were paying out of pocket, you tended to shop around, for good prices on pills, MRI's and the like.  I even talked my doctor into changing some of my prescriptions to the $4 a month Walmart pills.  You can cut costs noticeably when you have to pay them yourself.
    Then came Obamacare, which wiped out the "hospitalization only" policies.  Obamacare policies have to cover everything, chiropractic, maternity even for guys, eyeglasses, drug rehab, MRI's, CAT scans, head shrinking, you name it.  The medics loved that part.  So do the drug companies and the hospitals. 

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather. It's snowing again

A couple of inches of snow to day.  Better that than rain.  It is warm, pushing up to 32F, but it's still coming down as snow. 

Words of the Newsies: Coronate.

Coronate.  After talking about the upcoming "coronation" of Hillary Clinton, the newsies are using "coronate" as a verb, presumably meaning the act of placing a crown on a king, or a presidential candidate.  Actually, the word they are looking for is "crown".  To place the crown upon the head of the king. 
My older 1969 American Heritage Dictionary does not list "coronate" as a word.  Unfortunately, my newer, trendier, 1997 Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary does list "coronate" as a verb.  I hold with the older useage "crown" as opposed to the wordier, newer, Latin  "coronate".

Lincoln Reagan dinner, Grafton County

This is a fund raiser that we hold every year.  For a lotta years we have been holding it at the Indian Head resort (fairly tony for northern NH) at Franconia Notch.  I've been going to this event for quite a few years now, to the point where I know by name a lot of the guests. 
  Weather was miserable, it snowed all day, putting down 5-6 inches by 3 PM when it let up.  Trusty Mercury charged out of the garage, up my steep driveway, and crashed thru the foot high snowdrift at the street.  Getting thru the notch was tedious, lot of out of state cars creeping along at walking pace. The road was OK, but a tad slippery.  Being New Hampshire, just about everyone showed up, dispite the weather,  except the guest of honor, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who was coming up from Manchester by car.  Fortunately he had a native driver who got him upcountry all in one piece. 
   Cruz is sufficiently famous to attract TV troops with a satellite truck, which they parked out behind the Indian Head with the dish pointed up at a satellite and filling up with snow.  Cruz is a good speaker.  His English is plain American, no hint of a Texas accent, or a Spanish accent.  Speaking to a Republican audience, he connected.  He spoke of supporting freedom of religion, freedom from federal snoopers, local control of education as opposed to Common Core, the Constitution, love of country, his background.  He did not propose any new federal benefit programs.  He connected with the audience, and gained standing ovations.  This guy is a good speaker.  He would make mince meat of Hillary in a debate.  He took questions from the audience.  The questions were friendly, mostly asking him to expand upon themes he had previously touched upon.  The questioners were all bone fide New Hampshire folk, known to me.  He did not say anything about immigration, but given his background as the son of a Cuban refugee, I would expect him to be fairly sympathetic to immigrants.  Anyhow, this guy is worth watching.  He speaks well, he talks about concrete issues that matter to Republicans,  he would be a very competitive Republican presidential candidate.  He talked about conservative issues, but they are important issues, which many voters cherish.  He avoided wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather. Snowing again.

Four to eight inches forecast for today.   We have four inches down now and it's still falling.  No rain.  It's warm, 30F, but we are still getting snow, no rain. 

Keeping Production Up. Sherman Tanks

Tanks, key weapon in WWII.  The Americans rushed the M4 Sherman tank into production.  Drawings were complete  by March 1941 (well before Pearl Harbor).  Pilot model was tested at Aberdeen proving ground in September 1941 , quick work.  First production models were coming off the line by February 1942.  again quick work.  Two hundred Shermans were sent into action with the British 8th Army for the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942.  That's a total of 18 months to go from drawings to action. 
   Upon introduction, October 1942, the Sherman, with a short barrel 75 mm gun was competitive with German tanks. However, the Germans shortly introduced new bigger tanks (Tiger and Panther) which were better than the Sherman.  The Germans had thicker armor and bigger guns. 
   Back in Washington, the Army Ordinance board wanted to introduce a heavier American tank, but Army Ground Forces (the generals in action in the field) feared a loss of production and held the Ordinance folks at bay.  It wasn't until the Battle of the Bulge in 1945, where German tanks clearly outclassed the Sherman, that Ordinance got the go ahead to ship the heavy M26 Pershing tank.  A few Pershings saw action before the end of the war and it was generally agreed that they were a match for the German Tiger tanks. 
   During the war US industry churned out 50,000 Sherman tanks, four times the number of tanks built in Germany.  During this massive production run, a number of really heavy duty design changes were made.  Engines for the first Shermans were 9 cylinder air cooled radial engines.  When this went into short supply  later production Shermans received twin GMC 6-71 diesels, or the Chrysler multibank 30 cylinder engine, or a Ford V8 of 500 horsepower, or the Caterpillar radial diesel engine of 450 horsepower.  Those of us who have done an engine swap in hot rods, are impressed with a production line that can do an engine swap and still churn out 50,000 units on time.
  The first Shermans had a bolted together cast nose on a welded hull.  Later models had a one piece steel cast hull, and even later models had an all welded hull. Again, impressive redesigns pushed into production with hardly a hiccup in output.  The early model short barrel 75 mm gun was replaced by a much longer barrel higher velocity 76 mm gun in American service, and the British had their even fiercer 17 pounder anti gun (75 mm but much higher velocity) installed in their Shermans.  
   In short, production was able to swallow five different engines, three different hulls and three different guns with hardly a hiccup.  They probably could have switched over to the M26 Pershing with little more effort and no drop in output. 

Selling off Power Plants to cut rates???

Heard about this on NHPR fm this morning.  The public utility commission is going to force Eversource (nee Public Service of New Hampshire, my electric co.) to sell off it's power plants.  Some coal and some hydro.  The buyer is only going of offer about $20 million for the plants.  The state allows that they are worth about $400 million and promises to make up the difference to Eversource.  This is supposed to raise my electric rate ONLY 0.4 cents a kilowatt hour.  I'm already paying 25 cents a kilowatt hour, which is the highest in the US.  Then there was some more fast talk about how all this would come out OK for ratepayers in the distant future.  No mention about costs to tax payers either this year or in the "out years".. 
   Which would force Eversource to become a poles and wire and electric bills company who buys the power on the spot market and passes the cost on to us ratepayers.  When the price spikes Eversource just waves its hands and says the spot market is rigged.  Last state to fall for this scam was California.  And when the CA electric bills spiked they impeached the governor, Gray Davis.  The special election CA held to fill the governor's office was won by Arnold.
  Sounds like some Concord sharpies are out to skin us ratepayers.