One of the Few Things I Love About Our Government

Written By:  Andrew Eide

If you have read my blogs you would know that there is very little I love about our Government. However I wish to share with you one of the things I do love about our Government.

When I turned 2 years of age I decided to draw my Social Security Retirement early because I figure if I wait until the full retirement age of 66 just before I turned 66 the Government would change the full retirement age to maybe 70 and I would lose our several years of benefits.

I figure taking it at age 62 means they cannot take it all away from me as I'm already drawing it. If the funds run low they could reduce my benefits by up to 15 percent but that's as far as they can go.

The item that makes me love our Government is that when you draw Social Security they assume that is your only retirement income. They do not factor in my Military Retirement income to determine a reduction, etc., in the amount I receive from Social Security.

In fact they told me since Keira is under the age of 18 I am eligible to receive supplemental Social Security Benefits for her. This amount is above what I get but it is not counted on my Social Security Retirement account. It is totally for Keira;s benefit. The main purpose is to save for her education but we are allowed to use some of her Social Security benefits for food, clothing, school supplies, and even entertainment. However we are being as frugal as possible as we will be required to make an accounting to the Social Security Administration (SSA) at the end of the year. If too much of her supplemental Social Security benefits have been spent then even with receipts to prove the expenses they may take some, or all, of her benefits away from her. Our goal is to have at least 75 percent of what they sent her in 2016 when we turn in our accounting of how we managed her money.

Today I used some of her Social Security benefits to purchase books at her school's Book Fair. This is to help kids acquire books in their home and to raise money for the school. Keira gave us a list of the books she would like to have. Since we have her Social Security benefits we felt this purchase was within the guidelines for expenses.

You can see the five books I purchased today. Keira really wanted the Journal-Diary with a dog on the front and a lock on the side. When I arrived at the school they had only two of these left and we got one of them and the other went about five minutes later.

The other books are Magic Kitten, Magic Puppy, Lego Elves Activity Book, and Disney Descendants.

Another Reason We Love Keira

Written By:  Andrew & Becx Eide

Let's be honest here and state how things are. All children are trying at times but when they do something special, without prompting, and they show their love to their parents, it erases all the trying times and you cannot help but smile and enjoy the warmth in your heart.

Keira's First Grade class had an assignment last week to make a Valentine Card for their parents. Keira opted to make one for Becx and one for me. You will see the photos below. The first four is for the card she made for Becx and the next four is for the card she made for me.

Thanks Keira!

Why I Love My TriCare Medical Insurance

Written By:  Andrew Eide

I wish to tell you why I love my current medical insurance which is TriCare which is part of my benefits for being Retired from the United States Navy. Before I go into the benefits of TriCare medical insurance I wish to tell you how most standard medical insurance works. I will use my personal example which was from July 2006 to November 2008 when I worked for Three Angels Broadcasting Network in Loma Linda, California. At that time we had United Healthcare medical insurance.

With United Healthcare each insured person on the policy had to fulfill a $2,000 out-of-pocket payment, equivalent of a deductible you have with your automobile insurance. Once you have met that $2,000 out-of-pocket expense then United Healthcare would pay 80 percent of the balance and you would pay the remaining 20 percent.

Here is an actual example. My list wife, who passed away in July 2009, had cancer and one of her treatments cost $10,000. After I fulfilled the $2,000 out-of-pocket expense United Healthcare paid 80 percent of the remaining $8,000. In this case United Healthcare paid out $6,400. That left a balance for me to pay of $1,600. In this one medical exam I paid out $3,600.

The requirement to pay the $2,000 out-of-pocket was a yearly thing. Over the course of 3 years my last wife had many of these $10,000 procedures and I had to pay many of the $3,600 charges. Even after the $2,000 was met for that year, if another $10,000 treatment came in I still had to pay 20 percent of the bill or in this case $2,000.

We had CD's, IRA's, Savings, you name it, and in a three year period we lost everything due to the pathetic state of medical insurance.

Starting in November 2008, when I lost my full-time job and became full-time retired I was able to get enrolled in TriCare due to being Retired Military. Now you are asking why I didn't enroll before and that is a good question. The Law in the State of California states that if your employer offers you medical insurance you are required to accept that medical insurance and it becomes your Primary Medical Insurance. Even if I was enrolled in TriCare it would only serve as a secondary insurance. Even if I refused the United Healthcare medical insurance the State of California would still only recognize my TriCare as a secondary insurance.

Here is why I love TriCare medical insurance. Our total annual premiums to have full coverage medical insurance for my family of three persons is less than $600 per year while most people with conventional medical insurance pay over $600 per month.

I have no out-of-pocket expenses. I have no cost-shares. I have no monthly, yearly, or lifetime caps, where once those are reached no further payments are made by the insurance company. Most conventional medical insurance will cut you off when those caps are met

Office visit co-pays are $12 or less. Prescription co-pays are $10 or less. And TriCare pays the entire billing from the medical facility or doctor and if they don't pay the total amount billed the medical facility or doctor cannot charge me for the difference.

Using Keira's recent hospital visit the total bill to TriCare for Keira's evaluation and treatment was $1,600 and TriCare paid $1,300 of the claim. The medical facility and doctors are not allowed to charge me the $300 difference but if they wanted to they are allowed by Law to charge me 10 percent of what wasn't paid which in this case would be $30. For the 7 years I've had TriCare never once has any doctor or medical facility charged us for the difference.

I am truly blessed especially when I hear our friends tell us they pay $800 or more per month for medical insurance premiums and still they have to much out-of-pocket, deductibles, cost-shares, and monthly, yearly, and lifetime caps on what the insurance company pays out.

And there is one more perk. When I turn 65 years of age and the Government "forces" me onto Medicare, then my TriCare insurance, for myself, changes from TriCare Prime to TriCare Prime for Life and it will serve as my Medicare Supplement Insurance so I don't have to purchase any Medical Supplement Insurance plan. At the same time Becx and Keira remain on TriCare Prime.

Thanks to my Government for finally doing something right. Thanks for rewarding me for serving 20 years in the United States Navy supporting and protecting the United States, our Constitution, and our Freedoms.

Things I Love

Written By:  Andrew Eide

Recently I wrote about the things I hate. Today I will tell you about the things I love.

I love my wife, Becx, and daughter, Keira, to the utmost. Yeah we argue and complain all the time but the love is there.

I love chocolate. Yes I am a chocoholic but I'm the type of chocoholic who can go long periods of time without chocolates.

I love pizza especially pepperoni pizza.

I love lasagna. I believe only Garfield the cartoon cat loves lasagna more than I do.

I love dogs.

I love that I am retired from the United States Navy and that I receive a Retirement income.

I love that the Military provides me with outstanding medical insurance with TriCare and that the costs are very low compared to what everyone else we know has.

I love that I finally reached the age to draw Social Security Retirement. I could have waited until I was 66 years of age to get the full Retirement payment but I decided to take it at 62. Why? They continually change the age at which you can draw full retirement so I didn't want to get close to age 66 only to be told the Government changed the full retirement age to 70. I have it now and although they can reduce my benefits by up to 15 percent they cannot take it away from me now that I have it.

Things I Hate

Written By:  Andrew Eide

There are several things I hate. Of these things I hate I will not tolerate them as I feel they are the worst things people can do.

LYING - I will not tolerate lying. I feel the most important trait a person can possess is to tell the truth. It isn’t always easy to tell the truth but if you tell one lie then nothing you say after that point can be taken seriously. I see so many articles on dating that tell you to do this or that but the one thing they never tell people to do while dating is to tell the truth. You can make up all the things you want to tell your date but eventually they will figure out you are lying and you will no longer be trusted.

TELLING THE TRUTH AND THEN YOU ARE ACCUSED OF LYING - Oh man this is one of my biggest pet peeves. I hate it when I tell the truth and the person, persons, or organization I’m talking to calls me a liar and accuses me of not being honest with them. I’ve had that happen too often during my 42 years of working that it is something that drives me to get very upset and I get in the face of the people accusing me and call them out.

POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE - When you are running a business you need to provide good customer service. On Sunday, February 7, 2016, I had two horrible customer service incidents, one at WalMart and the other at Costco, and both incidents have me so upset I don't want to shop at either store again. I went to WalMart to pick up a cake and cupcakes for Keira's birthday. It should have taken 10 minutes to walk in, get my items, and check out of WalMart. It took me 1.5 hours becuase the regular Bakery crew was given the day off and they failed to fill any orders so the poor woman who had to fill in had to fill all the unfilled orders. Costco was also a simple 15 minute trip to pick up four rotisserie chickens for Keira's birthday party. It took 1.5 hours because their store is set up so that can't see the signs until you are 10 feet away from the counters and the fact that although chickens were cooking in the ovens there wasn't a single chicken on the display for customers to take. Customer service is extremely important to me but apparently customer service is not important to WalMart and Costco. They both received a scathing Yelp report from me so I hope they are happy with what I wrote.

So if you want to deal with me you better be willing to tell the truth. Also when I tell you the truth you better not try to accuse me of lying.

Hatred in the Bible & Quran

Written By:  Andrew Eide

Today I wish to discuss the hatred we have in the world today. There has always been hatred, primarily based on jealousy, since the beginning of time. And if you read most religious writings you will find that jealousy actually came a long time before our history was created when Satan, or Lucifer if you want to call him that, was jealous of Jesus as Jesus received more favorable treatment from God than he did. He failed to realize there was a significant difference between being the Son of God and the Head Angel in Heaven.

In the Bible you will find lots of hatred. In the Bible you will also find statements attributed to God where he tells the people of Israel to go into a country or region and destroy the inhabitants. There are even some discussions of killing people for adultery or for being in a same-sex relationship. However, as I see it anyway, the Bible, although it calls for the total destruction an annihilation of certain groups or countries or regions, I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it states to brutally kill anyone who refuses to convert to following Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that Christians should be tolerate and accepting of the beliefs of others even if they prefer to remain a non-Christian.

I’m sorry to say that the Quran doesn’t follow the same line of thought. In one verse you will find talk of peace and love and understanding of the beliefs of others. In the next verse you are told to murder everyone who refuses to convert to Islam. The Quran further states that anyone who refuses to convert to Islam is automatically classified as an infidel and a devil and they must be destroyed by any means imaginable and this includes innocent women and children.

Another comparison is that the Bible promotes telling the truth and being honest. The Quran promotes lying and it is right there in the Quran if you read it for yourself. Although the Quran states that lying is not acceptable and it is classified as a sin in the next sentence there is an “however” when they state that if you need to lie to convert someone to Islam then it is okay to lie and under those circumstances you are not sinning when you lie.

Are there Christians who twist what the Bible says to promote their evil and violent agendas? Yes. Are there Muslims who twist what the Quran says to promote their evil and violent agendas? Yes. Is there a solution for this? Yes. Both Christians and Muslims must come to grips with the stupidity faction of their religions and put a stop to it. To continue fighting and murdering others just because they don’t believe the way you do is stupid.

The Feeling You Get When You Are In Love

Written By:  Andrew Eide

There is a saying which basically goes that when you eat chocolate the euphoric feeling you get is the same as the euphoric feeling you get when you are in love.

Wrong!

I’m here to tell you that it is actually the other way around. The euphoric feeling you get when you are in love is the same euphoric feeling you get when you eat chocolate.

Being an official Chocoholic I’m here to tell you that chocolate comes before love (sorry Becx). As you can see in the photo included with this blog I received a huge box of chocolates from Becx and Keira for Christmas. Although I got many very nice gifts the chocolates are always one of my favorites.

Keira's Birthday

Written By:  Andrew & Becx

It was yesterday, February 3rd, that was Keira's 7th birthday.

We held a small birthday celebration here in the apartment and the full-blown birthday party will be held on Sunday, February 7th.

Here are a few photos taken during her blowing out candles on her birthday cupcakes and while she was in the car at her school waiting to go into her class for the day.

February is the "Love Month" but there is also Hate Out There

Written By:  Andrew Eide

February is usually designated as "The Love Month" due to Valentine’s Day falling on February 14^th.

However I am here to tell you this month that along with the love in the world there is a lot of hate to go around.

I will dive into those love-hate topics in articles during the month of February 2016.

For now I want to leave this introductory post short and to-the-point.